The  Opinions  of 
a  Philosopher 


By  the  Same  Author 

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YESTERDAY  I   GAVE  HER   AWAY.' 


Page  ISO. 


T^ 


Opinions  of 
a  Philosopher 


By 

Robert    Grant 


Illustrated  by 
W.  T.  Smedley   and   C.  S.  Reinhart 

^TBRT 

OF  THK 

I  UNIVERSITY  } 


Charles  Scribner's  Sons 
New  York  ^^^  1893 


(3 


•or 


Copyright,  1893,  by 
Charles  Scribner's  Sons 


730  3 


1 


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THE   OPINIONS 
OF    A    PHILOSOPHER 


MY  wife  Josephine  declares  that  I  have 
become  a  philosopher  in  my  old  age, 
and  perhaps  she  is  right.  Now  that  I  am 
forty,  and  a  trifle  less  elastic  in  my  move 
ments,  with  patches  of  gray  about  my  ears 
which  give  me  a  more  venerable  appearance, 
I  certainly  have  a  tendency  to  look  at  the 
world  as  through  a  glass.  Yet  not  altogether 
darkly  be  it  said.  That  is,  I  trust  I  am  no 
cynic  like  that  fellow  Diogenes  who  set  the 
fashion  centuries  ago  of  turning  up  the  nose 
at  everything.  I  have  a  natural  sunniness  of 
disposition  which  would,  I  believe,  be  proof 
against  the  sardonic  fumes  of  contemplation 
even  though  I  were  a  real  philosopher. 

However,  just  as  the  mongoose  of  the  bag- 


2  THK   OPINIONS  OF 

man's  story  was  not  a  real  mongoose,  neither 
am  I  a  real  philosopher. 

You  will  remember  that  Diogenes,  who 
was  a  real  philosopher,  occupied  a  tub  as  a 
permanent  residence.  He  would  roll  in  hot 
sand  during  the  heat  of  summer,  and  embrace 
a  statue  of  snow  in  winter,  just  to  show  his 
superiority  to  ordinary  human  conventions 
and  how  much  wiser  he  was  than  the  rest  of 
the  world.  The  real  philosophers  of  the 
present  day  are  not  quite  so  peculiar ;  but 
they  are  apt  to  be  fearfully  and  wonderfully 
superior  to  the  weaknesses  of  humanity.  For 
the  most  part  they  are  to  be  found  in  the 
peaceful  environs  of  a  university  or  on  some 
mountain  top  a  Sabbath  day's  journey  from 
the  hum  of  civilization,  where  they  eschew 
nearly  everything  which  the  every- day  mortal 
finds  requisite  to  comfort  and  convenience, 
unless  it  be  whiskey  and  water.  I  have  some 
times  fancied  that  more  real  philosophers 
than  AVO  are  aware  of  are  partial  on  the  sly  to 
whiskey  and  water.  But  that  is  neither  here 
nor  there  ;  for,  as  I  have  already  stated,  I  am 
not  a  real  philosopher. 

I  have  altogether  too  many  faults  to  be 
one,  and  should  constantly  be  flying  in  the 


A  PHILOSOPHER  3 

face  of  my  own  theories.  Barring  the  afore 
said  weakness  for  whiskey  and  water,  it  is 
fair  to  assume  that  the  average  real  philoso 
pher  lives  up  to  his  own  lights  and  by  them  ; 
whereas  I,  at  least  according  to  Josephine, 
am  liable  to  be  frightfully  inconsistent.  She 
has  never  forgotten  my  profanity  on  the  occa 
sion  when  we  discovered  after  dinner  that 
the  soot  had  come  down  in  the  drawing-room 
and  was  over  everything  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  the  chimney  had  been  swept  three  weeks 
before.  Now,  if  there  is  one  thing  which  I 
abhor  and  am  perpetually  inveighing  against 
as  vulgar  and  futile,  it  is  unbridled  language. 
Josephine  must  have  heard  me  say  fifty  times 
if  she  has  heard  me  once  that  the  man  who 
fouls  his  tongue  with  an  oath  is  a  senseless 
oaf.  And  yet  I  am  bound  to  admit  that  when 
I  discovered  what  had  happened  I  swore  de 
liberately  and  roundly  like  the  veriest  trooper. 
In  order  to  appreciate  the  situation  exactly  I 
should  add  that  it  has  long  been  a  mooted 
point  between  Josephine  and  me  whether 
chimneys  require  to  be  swept  at  all.  My  dar 
ling  insists  that  the  sweep  shall  overhaul  the 
house  annually,  while  I  cling,  with  what  she 
is  pleased  to  call  masculine  fatuity,  to  the 


4  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

theory  that  soot,  like  sleeping  clogs,  should 
be  let  alone. 

Have   you   ever   entered  a   drawing-room 


just  after  a  healthy,  thorough  fall  of  soot?  If 
so,  you  will  appreciate  what  is  meant  by  its 
all-pervasiveness.  The  remotest  articles  of 
furniture  are  rife  with  infinitesimal  smut, 


A  PHILOSOPHER  5 

much  as  they  were  rife  with  the  remains  of 
the  lady  in  Kipling's  story  after  the  jealous 
orang-outang  had  done  with  her.  And  yet 
granting  that  the  provocation  was  dire,  a 
philosopher,  a  real  philosopher,  would  have 
acted  very  differently.  A  philosopher  of  the 
grandest  type  would  have  reasoned  that  what 
was  done  was  done,  and  that  there  was  no 
more  use  in  crying  over  fallen  soot  than  over 
spilt  milk.  He  would  calmly  have  adopted 
prompt  measures  to  ameliorate  the  situation, 
and  after  the  servants  were  fairly  at  work 
would  have  taken  his  wife  apart  and  pointed 
out  to  her,  in  well-chosen  language,  that  here 
was  only  another  instance  of  his  superior 
wisdom.  One  of  a  more  virulent  type,  but 
still  a  philosopher,  might  have  indulged  in 
mirth — quiet  sarcastic  mirth.  No  person  of 
a  truly  philosophic  cast  of  mind  and  with  a 
rooted  antipathy  to  damning  would  have 
sworn  lustily  as  I  did. 

I  remember  taking  little  Fred,  my  name 
sake  and  eldest  son,  to  skate  with  me  one 
winter's  afternoon  on  a  suburban  pond.  He 
did  famously  for  a  tyro,  but  we  both  wearied 
at  last  of  his  everlasting  strife  to  maintain  the 
perpendicular,  and  I  was  conscious  of  a  rush 


6  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

of  joy  when  he  became  completely  absorbed 
in  watching  a  man  who  was  fishing  for  pick 
erel.  Have  you  ever  fished  for  pickerel 
through  a  hole  in  the  ice?  If  so  you  will 
recall  that  it  is  chilly  and  rather  dispiriting 
work,  especially  if  the  fish  are  shy.  They 
certainly  were  shy  that  afternoon,  for  the  in 
dividual  in  question  had  angled  long  and 
bagged  nothing,  as  I  gleaned  from  the  an 
swers  to  the  direct  interrogatories  put  by  my 
urchin  during  the  few  minutes  I  stood  pater 
nally  by  and  watched  the  proceedings. 

"Caught  anything?" 

"Nop." 

"Had  a  bite?" 

"Nop." 

"  How  long  you  been  fishing  ?  " 

"  An  hour." 

As  I  glided  away  light-heartedly  on  the 
delicious  curves  of  the  outer  edge,  I  reflected 
that  he  was  evidently  a  persevering  pot-hun 
ter  who  would  not  be  easily  discouraged,  and 
that  I  could  count  upon  his  engrossing  the 
attention  of  my  offspring  for  a  considerable 
period.  Accordingly,  I  was  surprised  some 
five  minutes  later  to  observe  the  fisherman 
(who  wore  no  skates)  shambling  across  the 


A   PHILOSOPHER  7 

pond  toward  the  shore.  Glancing  from  him 
to  his  late  station  I  perceived  a  little  group 
of  skaters  gathered  around  my  son  and  heir, 
who  was  dabbling  with  a  stick  in  the  aban 
doned  hole.  They  appeared  to  be  diverted 
by  something,  and  one  of  them,  my  friend 
Harry  Bolles,  who  had  his  handkerchief  up 
to  his  mouth,  made  a  bee-line  to  meet  me. 
From  his  lips  I  learned  what  had  happened, 
which  was  this  wise  :  The  horny-handed  pot 
hunter,  having  presently  pulled  a  solitary 
pickerel  out  upon  the  ice  and  freed  it  from 
his  hook,  turned  aside  to  cut  another  piece  of 
bait ;  whereupon  my  hopeful  picked  up  the 
fish  and  popped  it  back  into  its  native  ele 
ment  without  so  much  as  a  syllable  of  com 
mentary  ;  and  thereupon  (being  act  three  in 
the  tragedy)  he  of  the  horny  hand,  having 
realized  the  situation  in  its  terrible  entirety, 
pulled  up  his  line,  shovelled  back  the  parti 
cles  of  ice  into  the  hole  and  betook  himself 
upon  his  shambling  way  without  one  word. 
Not  a  word,  mark  you.  There  was  a  real 
philosopher,  if  you  like,  a  thorough-going, 
square-trotting  philosopher.  The  only  alter 
native  was  child-murder  or  silence,  and  my 
pot-hunter  chose  the  simplest  form  of  the  di- 


8  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

lemma.  "  I  thought  the  fish  would  like  it," 
said  little  Fred,  wheii  interrogated  upon  the 
subject. 

And  yet,  despite  my  occasional  inability 
to  practice  what  I  preach,  Josephine  is  cor 
rect  in  her  diagnosis  that  my  cast  of  mind  is 
becoming  more  philosophic  as  the  years  roll 
on.  The  consciousness  that  I  am  the  author 
of  four  children  (two  strapping  sons  and 
two  tall  daughters),  anyone  of  whom  may 
constitute  me  a  grandfather  before  I  am  fifty, 
renders  me  conservative  and  disposed,  meta 
phorically  speaking,  to  draw  in  my  horns  a 
little.  I  am  beginning  to  go  to  church  again, 
for  instance.  You  may  have  taken  it  for 
granted  that  I  have  been  regular  in  my  attend 
ance  at  the  sanctuary.  Certainly  I  have  never 
been  a  scoffer;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  I 
must  confess  that  somehow  it  has  come  to 
pass  since  Josephine  and  I  plighted  our  troth 
that  our  pew  has  stood  empty  on  the  Lord's 
day  oftener  than  the  orthodox  consider  fit 
ting.  And  the  worst  of  it  is  I  used  to  attend 
service  about  every  other  Sabbath  before  1 
became  a  benedict,  and  Josephine  taught  a 
Sunday-school  class  up  to  within  six  months 
of  our  wedding  ceremony.  She,  dear  girl,  has 


A  PHILOSOPHER  9 

harbored  ever  since  the  belief  that  she  con 
tinues  to  go  to  church  almost  every  Sunday 
either  in  the  morning  or  the  afternoon,  a 
harmless  delusion  which  for  some  time  I 
took  no  pains  to  dispel,  knowing  as  I  did 
that  she  meant  to  go  every  Sunday.  Yet  I 
knew  also  that  pitiless,  unemotional  statistics 
would  reveal  an  average  attendance  on  her 
part  of  rather  less  than  ten  times  in  the 
course  of  each  year.  I  was  brute  enough 
finally  to  call  her  attention  to  a  tally-sheet, 
covering  a  period  of  three  calendar  months, 
which  I  had  kept  for  my  private  edification, 
and  I  was  punished  by  seeing  her  sweet  eyes 
fill  with  tears  before  she  proceeded  to  plead 
to  the  indictment. 

"You  know,  Fred,  perfectly  well  that  I 
have  to  stay  at  home  with  the  children  every 
other  Sunday  morning  in  order  to  allow 
Lucille  to  go  to  church." 

"  But  how  about  the  other  mornings  and 
all  the  afternoons  ? "  I  inquired,  with  the 
effrontery  of  a  hardened  sinner  seizing  his 
opportunity  to  take  a  saint  to  task. 

Josephine  blushed,  partly  from  guilt  and 
partly  from  indignation.  "  It  rained  torrents 
last  Sunday  morning,  and  Sunday  morning 


10  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

fortnight — er — I  was  sick.  I  remember  that 
I  was  all  dressed  to  go  one  afternoon  when 
old  Mr.  Philippe  called  and  I  didn't  like  to 
leave  him.  Besides,  I  feel  as  though  I  ought 
to  stay  at  home  occasionally  on  Sunday  after 
noons  in  order  to  teach  the  children  the 
Scriptures.  The  Sunday  morning  before  that 
— er — I  went.  No,  it  must  have  been  a  fort 
night  previous,  for  I  recollect  now  that  I  had 
planned  to  go,  when  you  said  that  you  hated 
to  skate  alone  and  declined  to  take  the  entire 
responsibility  of  the  children  on  the  pond  on 
account  of  little  Fred  and  the  pickerel." 

"  And  I  said,  too,  I  remember,  that  in  all 
probability  there  wouldn't  be  black  ice  again 
all  winter." 

"  You  did,  you  did,"  my  darling  cried,  with 
tragic  impetuosity,  "and  it  is  cruel  of  you  to 
remind  me  of  it." 

"  Moreover,  it  was  a  correct  prophecy.  It 
snowed  that  very  night  and  the  people  who 
waited  until  Monday  were  nowhere." 

"Oh,  Fred,  Fred,  I'm  a  wicked  woman. 
You're  the  last  person  in  the  world  who 
ought  to  tax  me  with  it,  but  it  is  true.  I 
don't  go  to  church  as  I  ought.  And  yet  I  do 
mean  to  go.  But  if  it  isn't  one  thing  which 


I  TTNIVE 


A  PHILOSOPHER  11 

prevents,  it's  another.  Lucille  must  have 
every  other  Sunday  morning,  and  you  seem 
so  disappointed  if  I  refuse  to  go  skating  or 
canoeing  with  you  and  the  children  on  the 
fine  days  that  I  foolishly  yield." 

"And  you  the  daughter  of  a  deacon,"  I 
continued,  unsparingly.  Let  me  state  by  way 
of  explanation  that  Josephine's  late  father 
was  for  many  years  one  of  the  pillars  of  the 
religious  society  to  which  he  belonged. 

"  I  know,  I  know.  It  is  shameful.  I  —  we 
are  little  better  than  heathens,  Fred.  Only 
think  of  it,  four  times  in  three  months  !  "  she 
added,  glancing  at  the  tell-tale  sheet.  "  And 
I  brought  up  to  go  regularly  both  morning 
and  afternoon  in  addition  to  Sunday-school  ! 
I  am  a  heathen  ;  and  as  for  you,  I  don't 
know  what  to  call  you  !  "  she  exclaimed,  with 
a  sad,  reproachful  smile. 

So  long  as  Josephine  was  content  to  berate 
herself  without  including  me  in  her  anath 
emas,  I  had  been  ready  to  acquiesce  in  what 
she  said,  but  now  that  she  seemed  disposed 
to  drag  me  into  the  conversation  I  felt  it  in 
cumbent  upon  me  to  reply  with  dignity  : 

"Will  you  please  explain,  my  dear,  why  it 
is  that,  though  I  used  to  be  a  regular  wor- 


12  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

shipper  before  we  became  man  and  wife,  I 
have  almost  entirely  ceased  to  attend  church 
since  that  time  ?  Who  is  responsible  for  the 
change,  I  wonder." 

There  is  a  point  beyond  which  it  is  not 
safe  to  prod  Josephine,  and  I  could  see  from 
the  expression  of  her  eye  that  we  had  reached 
it  on  this  occasion.  She  drew  herself  up  and 
answered  haughtily : 

"  I  have  heard  you  make  that  insinuation 
several  times  before,  Fred.  It  is  not  merely 
silly,  it  is  disgraceful.  I  keep  you  from 
church?  Don't  you  know,"  she  exclaimed, 
with  a  quaver  of  emotion,  "  that  your  refusal  to 
go  is  a  source  of  genuine  grief  to  me,  and  that 
I  just  hate  to  go  alone  ?  Don't  you  know  that 
I  should  like  nothing  better  than  to  go  with 
you  every  Sunday,  and  that  I  am  ready  to  go 
to  any  church  you  will  select  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  I  answered,  doggedly,  "  I  am  well 
aware  that  you  would  prefer  to  have  me  be 
come  anything  rather  than  remain — er — a 
steadfast  worshipper  of  nature." 

Josephine  made  a  little  gesture  of  impa 
tience  such  as  my  well-worn  apotheosis  of 
nature  is  apt  to  evoke.  For  a  few  moments 
she  looked  as  though  she  were  going  to  cry  ; 


A  PHILOSOPHER  13 

then,  with  an  almost  passionate  outburst,  she 
exclaimed : 

"You  will  promise  me,  Fred,  won't  you, 
that  when  the  children  are  old  enough  to  un 
derstand  what  it  means  not  to  go  to  church 
you  will  go  too  ?  " 

Now,  it  may  be  that  my  response  at  the 
time  to  this  pathetic  appeal  was  not  alto 
gether  satisfactory  to  my  darling;  but  she 
has  forgotten  her  fears  and  her  tears  to  day  in 
the  happy  consciousness  that  as  surely  as  the 
bells  begin  to  ring  on  Sunday  morning  I 
begin  to  brush  my  silk  hat  with  the  feverish 
impatience  of  an  abandoned  church-goer. 
Punctuality,  which  has  always  seemed  to 
Josephine  a  pitiful  sort  of  virtue,  ranks  in  my 
category  of  human  conduct  almost  on  a  par 
with  brotherly  love,  and  I  am  apt  to  make 
myself  and  her  pretty  miserable  on  each  re 
turning  Sabbath  by  my  endeavors  to  get  the 
family  out  of  the  house  and  into  our  pew  on 
time.  It  is  only  by  bearing  strictly  in  mind 
what  day  it  is  that  I  am  able  to  keep  my  lips 
from  speaking  guile  when  little  Fred  re 
members  at  the  last  moment  that  he  has  for 
gotten  his  pocket-handkerchief  or  Josephine's 
glove  bursts  open  in  the  process  of  being 


H  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

hastily  rammed  on  and  I  am  compelled  to 
wait  while  she  sends  upstairs  for  a  fresh 
pair.  You  should  see  how  her  nostrils  swell 
with  pride  as  we  sweep  by  my  old  pal, 
Nicholas  Long,  and  his  wife,  who  are  mani 
festly  not  going  to  church.  I  can  discern  on 
Nick's  face,  as  we  pass,  an  expression  which 
is  half  sardonic,  half  pitiful.  Evidently  he 
has  not  forgotten  my  quondam  oft-repeated 
vow  that  no  child  of  mine  should  be  taught 
the  orthodox  fairy  tales  in  unlearning  which 
I  had  spent  some  of  the  best  years  of  my 
life.  And  now  I  am  a  recreant,  and  he  who 
aided  and  abetted  me  in  my  asseverations 
of  independence  remains  faithful.  Yes,  but 
Nick,  poor  fellow,  has  no  children.  His  grin 
seems  to  say,  "  See  what  you  are  missing, 
poor  old  patriarch  ;  Dorothy  and  I  are  off  for 
a  ten-mile  tramp  in  the  country." 

Yet,  despite  his  apparent  jubilation  of 
spirit,  I  detect  a  longing  expression  in  Doro 
thy's  eyes  and  I  notice  that  she  steals  a  sec 
ond  glance  over  her  tailor-made  shoulder  at 
little  Winona,  our  youngest,  who  is  an  un 
commonly  pretty  child,  if  I  do  say  it. 

"  There  go  a  light-hearted,  honest  couple 
with  the  courage  of  their  convictions,"  I  re- 


A   PHILOSOPHER  15 

mark  to  Josephine,  tentatively.  "  Before  the 
sermon  has  begun  they  will  be  on  the  river 
and  they  will  come  home  delightfully  tired 
just  in  time  for  dinner." 

"Light-hearted?  I  believe,  Fred,  that 
they  are  both  perfectly  miserable,"  she  ex 
claimed,  with  a  sweeping  glance  of  pride  at 
her  progeny.  "I  was  thinking  just  before 
you  spoke  how  much  I  pitied  that  woman." 

I  can  remember  as  if  it  were  yesterday 
Nick  Long  telling  me  with  bubbling  ecstasy, 
shortly  after  he  was  engaged,  that  his  lady 
love  had  a  clear,  analytical  mind,  almost  like 
a  man's.  "No  nonsense  about  her,"  he  said. 
"  She  sees  things  just  as  they  are."  I  rather 
got  the  impression  at  the  time  that  he  in 
tended  thereby  to  insinuate  gently  but  plainly 
that  he  was  a  far  luckier  dog  than  I  who  had 
married  a  woman  with  a  mind  conspicuously 
feminine.  I  should  like  very  much  to  know 
whether,  if  Dorothy  were  to  be  blessed  with 
children  after  all,  Nick  would  have  to  go  to 
church. 

Not  only  have  I  lost  moral  courage  in  the 
matter  of  some  of  my  deepest  convictions, 
but  I  notice  also  with  consternation  that  my 
physical  bravery  is  ebbing  away  as  my  years 


16 


THE  OPINIONS  OF 


increase.  I  have  drawn  the  line,  for  exam 
ple,  squarely  and  tautly  on  burglars.  One 
night  not  very  long  since  I  was  awakened 
by  noise  and,  after  listening,  I  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  it  proceeded  from  house 
breakers.  I  slipped  out  of  bed  stealthily 


and  put  my  ear 
to  the  bolted 
chamber  door  in 
order  to  confirm  my  conviction.  My  move 
ments  aroused  Josephine,  who  sat  up  in  bed 
and  asked  hoarsely  what  the  matter  was.  I 
put  my  finger  on  my  lips  quite  irrelevantly, 
for  it  was  pitch  dark. 

"  Fred,  are  there  burglars  in  the  house  ? " 
she  gasped. 
"Sh!     Yes." 


A  PHILOSOPHER  17 

"What  are  you  doing,  Fred?  Oh,  you 
mus'n't  go  down  and  expose  yourself  on  any 
account."  She  was  evidently  very  much  ag 
itated.  "  Promise  me  that  you  will  not." 

Having  ascertained  that  the  door  was  se 
cure  I  walked  across  the  room  and  turned  on 
the  electric  light.  Josephine  was  sitting  bolt 
upright,  quivering  with  excitement.  Her 
eyes  followed  my  every  movement,  as,  having 
slipped  on  my  trousers  and  a  pair  of  boots,  I 
began  to  look  around  me,  tramping  stur 
dily. 

"  Fred,  they'll  hear  you  if  you  make  such 
a  noise,"  said  my  wife,  in  an  agonized  whis 
per. 

"  I  fervently  trust  so,"  I  retorted.  "  That's 
why  I'm  doing  it." 

As  I  spoke  my  eye  lit  at  last  on  something 
adapted  to  my  purpose.  I  had  been  trying 
to  avoid  the  destruction  of  a  wash  basin,  and 
I  seized  with  grateful  eagerness  the  pair  of 
Indian  clubs  which  offered  themselves  and, 
lifting  them  to  the  level  of  my  brow,  let  them 
fall  clamorously  on  the  floor.  The  welkin 
rang,  so  to  speak,  and  I  sank  with  nervous 
exhaustion  into  an  arm-chair. 

The   house    seemed   deathly   still   and   it 


IS 


THE  OPINIONS  OF 


struck  me  that  Josephine  on  her  part  was 
ominously  quiet.  When  she  spoke  at  last  it 
was  to  ask : 

"  Haven't  you  a  pistol  ?" 

"  Yes,  dear." 

"  Are  you  going  to  let 
them  take  everything  ?  " 
"It  is  for  them  to 
decide,  darling." 
"But,  Fred " 


Josephine    did 
not    finish    her 
sentence.    The 
words  she  ut 
tered     were, 
however,  so  full 
of  poignant 
surprise    and 
d  i  s  a  p  p  oint 
ment  that  I  felt 

constrained  to  inquire  with  a  guilty  attempt 
at  nonchalance  : 

"  Is  there  anything  you  would  like  to  have 
me  do?" 

"You  are  the  best  judge,  of  course,"  she 
answered,  coldly.  "  Only,  do  you  think  it  is 
the  usual  way  ?  " 


A  PHILOSOPHER  19 

"  The  usual  way  ?  "  I  echoed.  Among  the 
few  points  in  Josephine's  character  which 
irritate  me  is  her  weakness  for  custom,  and  it 
is  growing  on  her.  "No,  I  suppose  that  the 
correct  social  thing  would  have  been  to  stand 
at  the  head  of  the  banisters  in  my  nightgown 
with  a  lighted  candle  and  make  a  target  of 
myself." 

"  Why  did  you  buy  a  pistol,  then  ?  "  in 
quired  my  better  half. 

"  So  that  the  children  needn't  shoot  them 
selves  with  it  after  it  was  locked  up  and  the 
cartridges  carefully  hidden,"  I  replied,  with 
levity.  "We  were  both  so  heated  that  we  had 
practically  forgotten  that  flat  burglary  was 
supposed  to  be  going  on. 

"  You  didn't  use  to  talk  in  that  way,"  said 
Josephine,  with  slow  precision.  "  I  only 
hope,  Fred,  for  your  sake  that  people  won't 
hear  about  this." 

"  They  will  not,  certainly,  unless  you  tell 
them,  Josephine." 

"  Tell  them?  I  wouldn't  mention  what 
has  happened  for  the  world,"  she  answered, 
looking  at  me  with  a  sort  of  sorrowful  dis 
dain.  Thus  is  it  that  the  ideals  which  women 
form  concerning  us  are  one  by  one  shattered ! 


20  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

I  am  sure  that  Josephine  would  have  been 
inconsolable  had  I  fallen  a  victim  to  the  bul 
let  of  a  house-breaker.  You  will  recall  that 
her  first  impulse  was  to  prevent  me  from  ex 
posing  myself  for  the  sake  of  the  solid  silver 
service.  She  had  taken  it  for  granted  that  I 
would  slip  the  bolt  and  go  part  way  down 
stairs,  at  least,  pistol  in  hand,  and  she  had 
wished  to  caution  me  against  undue  rashness. 
Consequently,  it  was  a  rucle  blow  to  her  sen 
sibilities  to  find  that  I  was  such  a  craven. 
She  cared  no  more  for  our  apostle  spoons 
and  gold-lined  vegetable  dishes  than  I  did ; 
it  was  the  principle  of  the  thing  which  dis 
tressed  her.  Why  had  I  bought  a  six-shooter 
shortly  after  our  marriage  except  to  be 
equipped  for  just  such  an  emergency?  It 
did  certainly  seem  that  I  was  bound  by  all 
the  laws  of  custom  to  pop  at  least  once  over 
the  banisters,  even  though  I  took  no  aim  and 
scurried  back  into  my  bedroom  immediately 
after.  That  would  have  satisfied  her,  she 
subsequently  admitted  to  me ;  but  to  drop  a 
pair  of  Indian  clubs  on  the  floor  in  order  to 
make  a  clatter  could  be  regarded  as  little  less 
than  pusillanimous,  philosophy  or  no  philos 
ophy. 


A  PHILOSOPHER  21 

We  have  talked  it  over  many  times  since, 
and  I  have  endeavored  to  make  plain  to  her 
that  in  the  process  of  evolution  thinking  men 
have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  hus 
band  and  father  who  chops  logic  at  dead  of 
night  with  an  accomplished  burglar  on  the 
wrong  side  of  his  chamber  door  is  akin  to  a 
lunatic.  She  listens  to  my  arguments  at 
tentively,  and  she  has  done  me  the  honor  to 
admit  that  there  is  more  to  be  said  in  my  be 
half  than  she  thought  at  first ;  but  I  remem 
ber  that  the  last  time  we  conversed  upon 
the  subject  she  shook  her  head  with  the  air 
of  a  woman  who,  in  spite  of  everything,  is 
still  of  the  same  opinion,  and  she  murmured 
gently : 

"  As  I  told  you  before,  Fred,  if  you  had 
fired  once  over  the  banisters,  I  would  say 
nothing." 

"  But  I  might  have  been  killed  or  maimed 
for  life  as  a  consequence,"  I  blurted,  feelingly. 

Josephine  looked  a  little  grave,  as  she  is 
apt  to  do  at  any  suggestion  of  my  sudden 
taking  off,  but  with  a  sweet  sigh  she  answered, 
succinctly : 

"  There  are  certain  risks  in  this  world  that 
a  man  has  to  take." 


II 


YOU  may  remember  that  I  have  four  chil 
dren  ;  my  namesake  Fred,  David,  who 
was  christened  in  honor  of  his  maternal  grand 
father,  Josephine,  or  Josie  as  we  call  her  in 
order  not  to  confound  her  with  her  mother, 
and  Winona,  the  baby  of  the  family.  We 
have  lately  moved  into  another  house.  The 
old  one  would  not  hold  us  any  longer.  At 
least  Josephine  declared  that  it  would  not 
shortly  after  the  agents  of  the  Board  of 
Health  fumigated  the  establishment  with  sul 
phur  to  kill  scarlet-fever  germs.  She  said  it 
would  be  cheaper  to  move  than  to  buy  new 
wall-papers  and  window-shades.  When  I 


OPINIONS  OF  A  PHILOSOPHER         23 

asked  how  this  could  be  she  waxed  a  little 
wroth  at  what  she  called  my  density,  and 
asked  if  I  did  not  appreciate  that  we  should 
have  to  move  at  any  rate  in  a  year  or  two  in 
order  to  provide  the  children  with  a  bedroom 
apiece.  The  necessity  for  this  had  not  oc 
curred  to  me,  I  must  confess,  and  I  was  mak 
ing  bold  to  inquire  why  the  two  boys  could 
not  continue  to  occupy  one  room  and  their 
sisters  another  as  in  the  past,  when  Jose 
phine  added,  in  an  awful  whisper : 

"  Besides,  the  house  is  overrun  with  cock 
roaches.  Now  mind,  Fred,"  she  continued, 
with  an  imperative  frown,  "  that  is  a  matter 
which  is  not  to  be  repeated  to  anyone." 

"  Why  should  I  wish  to  repeat  it?  "  I  asked, 
meekly. 

"  I  never  knoAV  beforehand  what  you  will 
repeat  and  what  you  will  not.  I  should  ex 
pect  to  hear  from  Jemima  Bolles  the  next  time 
we  met  that  you  had  confided  it  to  her  hus 
band,  and  positively  I  don't  care  to  have  her 
know.  Then,  too,"  Josephine  continued,  with 
the  manner  of  one  selecting  a  few  of  many 
grievances  to  air,  "  I  haven't  an  inch  of  un 
occupied  closet  room ;  and,  moreover,  you 
remember,  Fred,  that  the  plumber  said  the 


^4  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

last  time  he  was  here  that  by  good  rights  the 
plumbing  ought  all  to  be  renewed."  My  wife 
dwelt  on  these  concluding  words  with  insin 
uating  emphasis.  She  knows  that  I  am  daft, 
as  she  calls  it,  on  two  points,  closing  windows 
on  the  eve  of  a  thunder-shower  and  defective 
drainage. 

"  He  said  that  we  could  manage  very  well 
for  some  time  longer  without  the  slightest 
real  risk,"  I  answered,  doughtily. 

Josephine's  lower  lip  trembled.  Presently 
she  burst  out,  as  though  she  had  resolved  to 
throw  feline  argument  and  sophistic  persua 
sion  to  the  winds,  "  I  am  just  tired  of  this 
house,  Fred,  and  I  should  like  to  move  to 
morrow.  It  is  pitifully  small  and  disgust 
ingly  dirty  with  dirt  that  I  can't  get  rid  of, 
and  everything  about  it  is  old  as  the  hills.  It 
has  never  been  the  same  place  since  that  fall 
of  soot.  If  I  am  obliged  to  live  in  it  I  shall 
have  to,  but  I  am  sure  that  a  new,  clean 
house  would  add  ten  years  to  my  life." 

"  Jehosaphat !  "  I  added,  startled  by  this 
appeal  into  borrowing  the  latest  expletive 
from  the  vocabulary  of  my  eldest  son,  at 
which  Josephine  bridled  for  an  instant, 
thinking  that  she  had  detected  blasphemy. 


A  PHILOSOPHER  25 

When  it  dawned  upon  her  that  the  phrase 
in  question  was  only  one  of  those  hybrid, 
meaningless  objurgations,  the  use  of  which 
will  scarcely  justify  a  lecture,  my  darling 
gulped  dismally  and  waited  for  me  to  go 
on. 

I  am  inclined  to  think  that  a  gradually 
evolved  tendency  of  mine  not  to  go  on  when 
I  am  expected  to  was  what  first  prompted  my 
wife  to  dub  me  a  philosopher.  She  fancies, 
dear  soul,  that  she  is  a  loser  by  this  lately 
developed  proclivity  to  seek  refuge  in  silence 
on  the  occasions  when  she  or  the  children 
sweep  down  upon  me  with  some  hair-lifting 
project  which  craves  an  immediate  decision. 
But  she  is  in  error.  It  is  true  there  are  times 
when  the  sweet  onslaught  of  the  sons  and 
daughters  of  my  house  and  their  mother  has 
brought  the  old  man  to  terms  on  the  spot, 
and  wrung  from  him  an  immediate  permission 
to  do  or  to  spend  ;  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
Josephine,  who  in  spite  of  her  cunning  is  no 
philosopher,  and  her  offspring  little  realize 
how  often  their  feelings  have  been  saved 
from  laceration  by  this  trick  of  mine  (she 
calls  it  a  trick)  of  saying  nothing  until  I  have 
had  time  for  reflection.  No  man  is  so  wise 


i^O  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

as  his  wife  and  children  combined,  but  it 
takes  him  a  little  while  to  find  it  out ;  and  I 
have  discovered  that  to  chew  a  matter  over 
and  over  is  the  surest  way  to  avoid  promul 
gating  a  stern  refusal. 

So  it  was  in  this  instance.  Had  I  uttered 
the  words  which  rose  to  my  lips,  I  should 
have  felt  obliged  to  inform  Josephine  that, 
her  premature  taking  off  to  the  contrary  not 
withstanding,  to  move  into  another  house 
was  out  of  the  question  and  totally  unneces 
sary.  How  could  I  afford  to  move  ?  Why 
should  we  move  ?  The  dear  old  house  where 
we  had  passed  so  many  joyous  years  and 
which  Josephine  used  to  say  was  extraordi 
narily  convenient !  I  remember  that  I  be 
came  successively  irate,  pathetic,  and  bump 
tious  in  my  secret  soul.  I  said  to  myself 
stoutly  that  it  was  all  nonsense,  and  that  by 
means  of  a  little  fresh  paint  and  new  cover 
ings  for  the  dining-room  chairs,  we  should  be 
happy  where  we  were  for  another  five  years. 
Cockroaches?  Bah!  Was  there  not  insect 
powder  ? 

The  married  man  who  knows  in  his  secret 
soul  that  he  cannot  afford  to  move  and  who 
has  made  up  his  mind  that  nothing  on  earth 


A  PHILOSOPHER  27 

shall  induce  him  to,  is  terribly  morose  for 
the  first  few  weeks  after  his  wife  has  unbos 
omed  herself  upon  the  subject.  He  peruses 
with  a  savage  frown  the  real  estate  columns 
of  the  daily  newspapers,  while  he  mutters 
vicious  sentences  such  as,  "  I'll  be  blessed  if 
I  will ! "  or,  "  Not  if  I  know  myself,  and  I 
think  I  do!"  He  observes  moodily  every 
house  in  process  of  erection,  and  scrutinizes 
those  "  To  Let  "  with  an  animosity  not  quite 
consistent  with  his  determination  to  put  his 
foot  down  for  once  and  crush  the  whole  proj 
ect  in  the  bud.  Why  is  it  that  he  slyly  visits 
after  business  hours  the  outlying  section  of 
the  city,  where  the  newest  and  most  desirable 
residences  are  offered  at  fashionable  prices  ? 
Why  at  odd  moments  does  he  make  rows  of 
figures  on  available  scraps  of  paper  and  on 
the  blotter  at  his  office,  and  abstractedly 
compute  interest  on  various  sums  at  four  and 
a  half  and  five  per  cent.  ?  Why  ?  Because 
the  leaven  of  his  wife's  threat  that  her  life 
will  be  shortened  is  working  in  his  bosom 
and  he  beholds  her  in  his  restless  dreams 
crushed  to  death  beneath  a  myriad  of  water- 
bugs,  all  for  the  lack  of  an  inch  of  closet- 
room.  Why?  Because  he  is  haunted  per- 


28  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

petually  by  the  countenances  of  his  daughters, 
on  which  he  reads  sorrowfully  written  that 
they  are  wasting  away  for  lack  of  the  bed 
chamber  apiece  promised  them  by  their 
mother.  Why?  Because,  in  brief,  he  is  a 
philosopher,  and  recognizes  that  what  is  to 
be  is  to  be,  and  that  it  is  easier  to  dam  up  the 
waters  of  the  Nile  with  bulrushes  (to  adopt 
an  elegant  and  well-seasoned  exemplar  of  im 
possibility)  than  to  check  the  progress  of 
maternal  pride. 

Some  four  months  after  Josephine's  an 
nouncement  that  she  would  live  ten  years 
longer  elsewhere,  I  returned  home  one  after 
noon  with  what  she  subsequently  stigmatized 
as  a  sly  expression  about  the  corners  of  my 
mouth.  I  doubt  if  I  did  look  sly,  for  I  pride 
myself  on  my  ability  to  control  my  features 
when  it  is  necessary.  However  that  may  be, 
having  persuaded  Josephine  to  take  a  walk,  I 
conducted  her  to  the  door  of  a  newly  finished 
house  in  the  fashionable  quarter. 

"  It  might  be  amusing  to  go  in  and  look  it 
over,"  I  murmured.  "  I  should  rather  like 
to  see  the  ramifications  of  a  modern  house." 

Josephine,  albeit  a  little  surprised,  was  en 
raptured.  She  promptly  took  the  lead  and 


A   PHILOSOPHER 


I  tramped  at  her  side  religiously  from  cellar 
to  attic,  while  she  peeped  into  all  the  closets 


and  investigated  the  laundry  and  kitchen  ac 
commodations  and  drew  my  attention  to  the 
fact  that  the  furnace  and  the  ice-chest  would 
be  amply  separated. 


30  TUB  OPINIONS  OF 

"  Yon  know,  Fred,  that  in  our  lionse  they 
are  side  by  side  and  we  use  a  scandalous 
amount  of  ice  as  a  consequence,"  she  said, 
hooking  her  arm  in  mine  lovingly. 

"  The  whole  house  strikes  me  as  very  well 
arranged,"  I  retorted,  in  a  bluff  tone,  as  much 
as  to  say  that  I  saw  through  her  blandish 
ments.  I  think  she  appreciated  this.  Never 
theless,  a  few  minutes  later  when  we  were  on 
the  dining-room  story,  she  rubbed  her  head 
against  my  shoulder  and  said,  "Just  see  what 
a  love  of  a  pantry,  Fred.  Mine  is  a  hole 
compared  to  it.  Servants  in  a  house  like  this 
would  never  leave  one.  And  do  look  at  this 
ceiling.  It  is  simple,  but  divinely  clean  and 
appropriate." 

"  It  is  well  enough,"  said  I,  coldly. 

After  indulging  in  various  other  raptures, 
to  which  I  seemed  to  turn  a  deaf  ear,  and  ex 
amining  everything  to  her  heart's  discontent, 
Josephine  moved  toward  the  front  door  with 
a  sigh.  Then  it  was  that  I  remarked  : 

"  So  the  house  suits  you,  my  dear  ?  " 

"It  is  ideal,"  she  murmured,  "simply 
ideal." 

"  There  are  things  about  it  which  I  don't 
fancy  altogether,"  said  I. 


A  PHILOSOPHER  31 

"  Oh,  Fred,  if  we  only  had  a  house  like  it, 
I  should  be  perfectly  satisfied." 

"  Should  you  ?     It  is  yours,"  I  answered. 

"  Don't  be  unkind,  Fred." 

"  It  is  yours,"  I  repeated,  a  little  more  ex 
plicitly. 

Josephine  devoured  me  with  inquiring 
eyes.  As  she  gazed,  the  expression  of  my 
countenance  brought  the  blood  to  her  cheeks 
and  she  cried  with  the  plaintiveness  of  a 
wounded  animal,  "  What  do  you  mean,  dear? 
It  is  cruel  of  you  to  make  sport  of  me." 

"  I  am  not  making  sport  of  you,  Josephine. 
The  house  is  yours — ours.  I  bought  it  yes 
terday.  Here  is  the  deed,  if  you  mistrust 
me,"  I  continued,  solemnly  drawing  from  my 
pocket  the  dociiment  in  question. 

Josephine  took  it  like  one  dazed.  She 
looked  from  me  to  it  and  back  again  from  it 
to  me,  then  with  a  joyous  laugh  she  ex 
claimed,  "Keally?  It  is  really  true?  Oh, 
Fred,  you  are  an  angel !  " 

"  No,  iny  dear,"  I  answered,  as  she  flung 
her  arms  about  my  neck — for  she  does  so 
still  once  in  a  while — "I  am  merely  a  phi 
losopher  who  has  learned  to  recognize  that 
what  must  be  must  be." 


THE  OPINIONS  OF 


My  wife  was  too  much  absorbed  in  her 
own  mysterious  mental  processes  to  take  note 
of  or  analyze  this  observation.  For  a  few 
moments  she  was  lost  in 
a  brown  study,  and  gazed 
about  her  with  a  glance 
that  struck  me  as  some 
what  critical. 

"You  are  an  angel, 
Fred,"    she    repeated, 
ruminantly.    "You 
took  me  in  splendid 
ly,  didn't  you  ?    And 
to  think  of  your  do 
ing  it  all  by   your- 
„     self ! " 

She  wandered 
back  into  the  din 
ing-room,  and 
thence  to  the  hall, 
where  she  stood 
peering  up  the 
stairway  at  the  skylight.  "Yes,"  she  con 
tinued  presently,  in  a  judicial,  contempla 
tive  tone,  "  I  think  it  will  do  very  well,  on 
the  whole.  I  am  not  perfectly  sure  that 
the  laundress  will  be  satisfied  with  the  ar- 


PHILOSOPHER 


raugernent  of  the  laundry,  and  I  don't  see  ex 
actly,  Fred,  what  you  are  to  do  for  a  dress 
ing-room,  when  we  have  more  than  one 
visitor.  I  am  out  of  conceit  with  the  tinting 
of  the  drawing-room  ceiling,  and — and  sev 
eral  of  the  mantelpieces  are  hideous.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  dining-room  is  per 
fectly  lovely,  there  is  no  end  of  closet-room, 
and  the  kitchen  is  a  gem.  Oh,  thank  you, 
Fred,  thank  you  ever  so  much.  I  really  never 
expected  that  we  could  afford  to  leave  the 
dear  old  house.  It  will  almost  break  my 
heart  to  leave  it,  too,  although  it  is  so 
dirty." 

Josephine's  guns  were  spiked,  as  it  were. 
Having  declared  that  the  house  was  ideal, 
she  was  barred  from  utterly  blasting  it  in  the 
next  breath.  To  tell  the  truth,  I  felt  as  a 
consequence  decidedly  perky  and  inclined  to 
perform  the  double-shuffle  or  something  of 
the  sort  quite  out  of  keeping  with  the  tradi 
tional  repose  of  a  philosopher.  It  was  so 
obvious  to  me  that  I  had  escaped  weeks,  if 
not  months,  of  misery  by  the  ruse  which  I 
had  adopted  that  I  was  fain  to  dance  with 
joy.  Had  I  allowed  Josephine  to  pick  out  a 
house  she  would  have  felt  obliged,  even 
3 


34:  THE  OPINION'S  OF 

though  she  was  thoroughly  satisfied  with  the 
first  she  saw,  to  inspect  from  top  to  bottom 
every  other  in  the  market,  for  fear  that  she 
might  see  something  which  pleased  her  bet 
ter,  and  I  should  have  been  compelled  to  ac 
company  her.  There  are  a  few  advantages 
after  all  in  being  of  a  philosophic  turn  of 
mind. 

And  here  is  another  bit  of  philosophy  for 
you  which  I  am  thoroughly  convinced  is 
sound.  A  woman  adroitly  handled  will  per 
mit  her  husband  to  choose  a  new  unfurnished 
house  for  her  without  serious  demur.  But 
let  the  lord  and  master  beware  who  takes 
it  upon  himself  to  do  the  furnishing  also 
stealthily  and  of  his  own  accord.  I  will  con 
fess  that  it  did  occur  to  me  at  first  to  put 
through  the  whole  business  at  one  fell  swoop 
—house,  wall-papers,  dados,  chandeliers,  car 
pets,  and  curtains.  I  even  went  so  far  as  to 
cross  the  street  one  day  with  the  intention 
of  asking  Poultney  Briggs,  who  makes  a  busi 
ness  of  letting  people  know  what  they  ought 
to  like  in  the  line  of  interior  decoration,  to 
name  his  price  to  complete  the  job.  But  my 
courage  failed  me  at  the  last  minute,  for  I 
had  a  presentiment  that  Josephine  would  be 


A  PHILOSOPHER  35 

disappointed  if  I  did.  You  see  I  know  her 
pretty  well  after  all  these  years. 

"  I  should  never  have  forgiven  you,  Fred 
— never !  "  said  my  better-half,  emphatically, 
when  I  told  her  how  near  I  had  come  to  the 
crucial  act.  "I  should  have  hated  every 
thing.  Besides,  no  one  nowadays  thinks 
anything  of  Poultney  Briggs  as  a  decorator. 
He  is  terribly  behind  the  times." 

I  accepted  this  reproof  and  the  accom 
panying  verdict  with  becoming  meekness.  I 
remember  that  when  we  first  went  to  house 
keeping  Poultney  Briggs  was  in  the  van  of 
artistic  progress,  and  that  no  one  was  to  be 
mentioned  in  the  same  breath  with  him ;  yet 
now,  apparently,  he  was  of  the  sere-and-yel- 
low-leaf  order,  professionally  speaking.  And 
I  was  old  fogy  enough  not  to  have  been  aware 
of  it.  Clearly,  I  was  not  fit  to  be  entrusted 
with  the  selection  of  even  a  door-mat,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  wall-papers  and  carpets.  It 
was  with  a  thankful  heart  over  my  foresight 
that  I  relinquished  to  Josephine  the  whole 
task  of  furnishing,  with  the  sole  reservation 
that  I  should  have  my  say  about  the  wine- 
cellar.  My  only  revenge,  a  miserable  one 
forsooth,  was  that  she  resembled  a  skeleton 


36  THE  OPINION'S  OF 

three  months  later ;  a  pale,  pitiful  bag  of 
bones,  though  proud  and  radiant  withal. 
Had  it  not  been  for  that  prediction  that  her 
life  was  to  be  lengthened,  I  should  have  felt 
anxious.  What  a  marvellous  creation  a 
woman  is,  to  be  sure !  Man  and  philosopher 
as  I  am,  my  impulse  would  have  been  to  con 
sign  the  contents  of  the  garret  to  the  auc 
tioneer  or  the  ash-man,  and  to  retain  most  of 
the  least-used  furniture  and  upholstery  to 
eke  out  our  new  splendor.  But  Josephine's 
method  was  distinctly  opposite.  She  was 
critical  of  nearly  everything  respectable-look 
ing  in  the  old  house;  on  the  other  hand, 
there  was  scarcely  anything  in  the  attic  or 
lumber-room,  where  our  useless  things  were 
stored,  which  did  not  turn  out  to  be  a  treasure 
and  just  the  thing  for  the  new  establishment. 
To  begin  with,  there  was  a  love  of  a  set  of  and 
irons  and  a  brass  fender  (to  reproduce  Jo 
sephine's  description  exactly),  which  had  been 
discarded  at  the  time  we  began  housekeep 
ing  as  too  old-fashioned  and  peculiar.  Of 
equal  import  was  a  disreputable-looking  ma 
hogany  desk  with  brass  handles  and  claw 
feet  which  had  belonged  to  my  great-grand 
mother  before  it  was  banished  to  the  garret 


A  PHILOSOPHER  37 

within  a  month  after  our  wedding  ceremony, 
on  the  plea  that  none  of  the  drawers  would 
work.  They  don't  still,  for  that  matter.  A 
cumbersome,  stately  Dutch  clock  and  a  toast- 
rack  of  what  Josephine  styled  mediaeval  pat 
tern,  were  among  the  other  discoveries.  The 
latter  was  reposing  in  a  soap-box  in  company 
with  a  battered,  vulgar  nutmeg-grater.  But 
the  pieces  of  resistance,  as  I  called  them,  on 
account  of  the  difficulty  we  had  in  moving 
them  from  behind  a  pile  of  old  window- 
blinds,  were  the  portraits  of  a  little  gentleman 
in  small-clothes,  with  his  hair  in  a  cue  and  a 
seeming  cast  in  one  eye,  and  a  stout  lady 
with  a  high  complexion  and  corkscrew  ring 
lets. 

"  Oh,  Fred,  who  are  they  ?  "  cried  Joseph 
ine,  ecstatically,  and  she  began  to  dust  the 
seedy,  frameless  canvases  with  a  reverential 
air.  "  Where  did  they  come  from  ?  " 

"  They're  ancestors  of  mine,  love." 

"  Ancestors  ?  How  lovely,  Fred  !  I  didn't 
know  you  had  any.  I  mean  I  didn't  know 
you  had  any  who  had  their  portraits  painted." 

"  On  the  contrary,  Josephine,  I  told  you 
who  they  were  when  we  were  engaged,  and  I 
remember  I  was  rather  anxious  to  hang  them 


38  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

in  the  dining-room,  but  you  said  they  were  a 
pair  of  old  frumps,  and  that  you  wouldn't 
give  them  house  space.  So  we  compromised 
on  the  attic." 

"  Did  I  ?  "  said  my  darling,  gravely.  "  Well, 
it  must  have  been  because  the  dining-room 
was  too  small  for  them.  They  will  look  de 
lightfully  in  our  new  one,  when  they  are 
mounted  and  touched  up  a  bit,  and  they  will 
set  off  our  Copley  of  my  great-aunt  in  the 
turban.  What  are  their  names  ?  They  must 
have  names." 

"  They  are  my  great-grandfather  Plunkett 
and  his  wife,  on  my  father's  side.  He  was  a 
common  hangman." 

"  Now  don't  be  idiotic,  Fred." 

"  He  was,  my  dear.  It  was  you  yourself 
who  said  it.  Don't  you  remember  my  calling 
two  of  your  forbears  a  precious  pair  of  don 
keys  because  they  wouldn't  eat  any  form  of 
shell-fish,  and  your  replying  that,  though  I 
was  in  the  habit  of  grandiloquently  describ 
ing  my  ancestor  who  used  to  execute  people 
as  'the  sheriff  of  the  county,'  he  was  only  a 
common  hangman?  " 

"Oh,  was  that  the  man?  All  I  said  was 
that  if  he  had  been  my  ancestor  instead  of 


A  PHILOSOPHER  39 

yours,  you  would  have  called  him  a  hangman. 
He  was  sheriff  of  the  county,  wasn't  he, 
dear?" 

"  So  I  have  been  taught  to  believe." 

"'My  ancestor,  the  high  sheriff,'  won't 
sound  badly  at  all,"  she  said,  jauntily. 

"  Especially  if  we  can  tone  up  the  old  gen 
tleman's  game  eye  a  little." 

Josephine's  face  expressed  open  admira 
tion.  "  You  are  a  genius  and  a  duck,"  she 
exclaimed ;  then,  after  a  reflective  pause,  she 
murmured,  "  Very  likely  he  met  with  an  ac 
cident  just  before  he  was  painted." 

"Yes,  dear.  Consequently,  if  the  eye  can't 
be  improved  by  means  of  the  best  modern 
artistic  talent,  the  least  we  can  do  is  to  put  a 
shade  over  it." 

This  waggish  remark  seemed  to  be  lost  on 
Josephine.  She  wore  a  far-away  look  as 
though  her  thoughts  were  following  some 
fancy  which  had  appealed  to  her.  She  did 
not  deign  to  take  me  into  her  confidence  at 
the  moment,  but  a  fortnight  later  I  happened 
to  come  upon  her  in  close  confabulation  with 
a  very  clever,  rising,  local  artist,  over  this 
same  portrait  of  my  great-grandfather  Plun- 
kett. 


40  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

"Fred,"  she  said,  nonchalantly,  "Mr. 
Binkey  thinks  he  can  do  something  to  this 
which  will  improve  it." 

"  I  shouldn't  suppose  that  it  was  easy  to 
improve  upon  nature,"  I  remarked,  oracularly. 

Josephine  blushed  a  little,  but  she  replied, 
with  sturdy  decision,  "  Oh,  but  he  never 
could  have  looked  like  that.  His  eyes  must 
have  been  alike,  Fred.  Mustn't  they,  Mr. 
Binkey?" 

"  I  should  imagine,"  said  our  rising  local 
artist,  with  a  meditative  squint  at  the  pict 
ure,  "that  the  fault  was  in  the  technique 
rather  than  in  the  subject-matter  of  the 
portrait." 

"  Precisely,"  said  Josephine,  triumphantly. 
"  Besides,  Mr.  Binkey  says  it  needs  varnish 
ing." 

What  can  one  say  in  the  teeth  of  profes 
sional  authority?  When  great-grandfather 
and  great-grandmother  Plunkett  came  back 
to  us  at  the  end  of  a  month,  they  were  newly 
varnished  and  in  bright,  tasteful  frames,  and 
no  one  would  ever  have  detected  that  the 
old  gentleman's  eyes  did  not  resemble  each 
other  closely.  Since  then  I  have  often  heard 
Josephine  declare  her  gratitude  that  she  did 


A  PHILOSOPHER 


not  allow  any  squeamishness  to  prevent  her 
from  giving  the  children  and  people  gener 
ally  the  correct  impression  of  a  man  who  was 
eminent  in  his  day  and  gener 
ation.  Indeed,  I  have  heard 
her  call  the  attention  of  vis 
itors  to  the  strong  similar 


ity  about  the  brow  and  eyes  which  our  second 
son  David  bears  to  his  great-grandfather, 
High  Sheriff  Plunkett,  and  I  do  not  question 
in  the  least  that  she  believes  the  cast  in  the 


42         OPINIONS   OF  A  PHILOSOPHER 

old  gentleman's  optic  never  to  have  existed 
save  in  the  original  portrait-painter's  imag 
ination.  I  must  admit  that,  notwithstanding 
the  changes  made  by  local  talent  in  my  ances 
tor's  physiognomy,  I  am  occasionally  struck 
myself  with  the  strong  resemblance  specified 
by  Josephine ;  and  the  longer  I  live  the  less 
doubt  I  have  that  she  is  a  far  cleverer  person 
than  your  humble  servant. 


Ill 


QHOETLY  before  we  moved  to  the  sea- 
O  side  this  summer,  it  was  evident  to  me 
that  Josephine  had  something  on  her  mind 
which  she  hesitated  to  broach  to  me.  I  sus 
pect  that  the  dear  girl  realized  that  we  had 
had  rather  a  trying  winter  in  our  new  estab 
lishment,  and  was  accordingly  a  little  nervous 
as  to  how  I  would  receive  a  new  suggestion, 
which  was  aimed  directly  at  my  personal  com 
fort.  I  had  indeed  found  the  winter  some 
what  trying  on  account  of  the  number  of  small 
repairs  which  had  proved  to  be  necessary. 
Most  of  the  doors  would  not  open  except  by 
the  application  of  brute  force,  and  many  of 
the  windows  rattled,  so  that  carpenters  were 
in  possession  of  the  premises  a  total  of  one 
hundred  and  twenty-eight  hours  in  the  course 
of  nine  calendar  months,  and  I  was  compelled 
to  listen  in  hang-dog  silence  to  Josephine's 
sibilant  commentary,  that  this  was  the  nat- 


44  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

ural  result  of  buying  a  ready-made  house. 
Still,  I  must  admit  that  on  the  whole  she  be 
haved  extraordinarily  well  under  these  trying 
circumstances,  and  said  nothing  more  tart 
than  that,  if  she  ever  were  so  foolish  as  to 
move  again,  she  should  insist  on  building  a 
house  to  suit  herself;  which  struck  me  as 
rather  a  boomerang  of  a  speech,  seeing  that 
it  implied  a  lurking  doubt  on  her  part  as  to 
whether  she  had  been  wise  in  moving  at  all. 
I  even  came  near  admitting  to  her  in  conse 
quence  that  I  was  thankful  we  had  moved, 
and  that,  surface  indications  to  the  contrary 
notwithstanding,  I  was  extremely  happy  in 
my  new  surroundings,  and  egregiously  proud 
of  her  taste  and  cleverness  in  the  selection  of 
wall-papers  and  upholstery.  I  could  have 
truthfully  added  also  that,  though  a  slippery 
hump  had  replaced  the  cosey  hollow  in  my 
renovated  easy-chair,  I  had  found  one  of  the 
new  chairs  exactly  suited  to  my  sensibilities, 
and  should  be  secretly  pleased  if  the  old  one 
were  to  softly  and  suddenly  vanish  away  dur 
ing  our  absence  at  the  sea-side,  after  the  man 
ner  of  the  Boojum  of  ditty.  I  have  really  no 
adequate  reason  to  give  why  I  delayed  to 
make  this  amiable  confession.  It  was  the 


A  PHILOSOPHER  45 

consciousness,  however,  that  I  had  it  to  make 
which  prompted  me  to  help  my  darling  out 
of  her  quandary  when  I  perceived  that  she 
seemed  afraid  to  beard  the  lion  in  his  den. 

"  It  has  been  very  evident  to  me,  Joseph 
ine,  for  the  last  two  days,  that  you  are  keep 
ing  back  something.  If  your  mind  is  really 
set  on  altering  the  tinting  of  the  drawing- 
room  ceiling,  I  will  consent  to  have  it  done 
while  we  are  out  of  town." 

"It  isn't  that  at  all,  Fred.  I  agree  with 
you  that  we  can't  afford  it  this  year." 

"  Is  it  the  extra  tub  in  the  laundry,  then  ?  " 

"  Of  course  it  would  be  very  nice  if  we 
could  have  an  extra  tub.  But  it  isn't  that." 

"  Then  there  is  something  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  she  murmured.  "  Oh,  Fred,  I  do 
hope,  now  that  the  doctor  has  ordered  you  to 
take  more  exercise,  you  will  get  one  of  those 
pretty,  striped,  tennis  suits." 

"  Yes,  do,  father  dear,"  exclaimed  my  eld 
est  daughter,  who  happened  to  enter  the  room 
at  the  moment  and  overheard  her  mother's 
speech.  "  You  would  look  perfectly  lovely 
in  one." 

"  It  would  be  a  satisfaction  for  once  to  see 
you  wear  something  a  little  joyous,"  con- 


46  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

tinned  my  wife,  emboldened  by  the  enthusi 
asm  of  her  offspring. 

"You  seem  to  forget,  dear,  that  I  am  a 
plain  man,"  I  answered,  though  to  tell  the 
truth  I  was  asking  myself  whether  I  was  not 
a  trifle  weary  of  posing  in  that  sublime  ca 
pacity.  Now  that  I  thought  of  it,  what  was 
the  especial  virtue  of  being  a  plain  citizen  ? 

When  I  came  to  reflect  on  the  matter  fur 
ther,  I  realized  that  my  programme  for  the 
past  fifteen  years  has  been  to  put  on  a  plain 
pepper-and-salt  suit  of  modest  demeanor  in 
the  morning,  eat  two  plain-boiled  eggs  for 
breakfast,  walk  down  town  in  a  plain  black 
overcoat  to  my  office  in  a  plain-looking  build 
ing,  where  I  pursue  my  calling  until  it  is  time 
to  go  home  and  doff  my  pepper-and-salt  of 
modest  demeanor  for  a  plain  suit  of  sables, 
the  funereal  dress-clothes  of  commerce  and 
convention.  Even  this  coal-black  tribute  to 
ceremony  has  discredited  me  with  some,  who 
argue  that  I  am  not  a  plain  man  because  I  do 
not  prefer  to  dine  in  the  same  old  pepper- 
and-salt.  Yerily  the  only  bits  of  warm  color 
in  my  wardrobe  have  been  a  robin's-egg-blue 
necktie,  which  I  have  never  dared  to  wear 
except  once  at  a  wedding,  and  a  pair  of  pa- 


A  PHILOSOPHER  47 

jamas  reserved  for  very  occasional  jaunts  on 
yachts  and  sleeping-cars.  And  now  that  I 
had  the  doctor's  orders  to  take  more  exer 
cise,  I  had  been  on  the  point  of  selecting 
an  ordinary,  plain,  pepper-and-salt  flannel 
shirt,  and  condemning  one  of  my  oldest  and 
plainest  pairs  of  pepper-and-salt  trousers  for 
the  purpose. 

And  yet  it  was  not  always  so.  I  remember 
that  when  I  was  a  young  fellow  and  a  bach 
elor  I  used  to  be,  if  not  a  dandy  exactly,  very 
particular  regarding  my  personal  appearance, 
and  that  I  was  willing  to  approach  the  border 
line  of  gaudiness  as  closely  as  any  of  my  con 
temporaries.  It  took  courage,  too,  then  :  the 
youth  who  wore  down  town  even  a  garden 
flower  in  his  button-hole  was  liable  to  be  sus 
pected  of  a  lack  of  purpose.  One  got  very 
little  encouragement  at  the  best  in  any  effort 
to  fly  in  the  face  of  the  perpetual  black  tie 
and  black  broadcloth  frock-coat  of  the  plain 
American  citizen,  and  he  who  chose  not  to 
wear  the  garb  of  the  Republic  not  merely 
cut  himself  off  from  the  possibility  of  ever 
becoming  President,  but  ran  the  risk  of  be 
ing  refused  employment  of  any  kind.  Nat 
urally,  therefore,  I  began  after  I  was  mar- 


48  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

ried  to  do  pretty  much  as  the  rest  of  my 
fellow-citizens  did,  save  in  the  matter  of  a 
dress-coat  at  dinner,  which  I  continued  to 
don  daily  out  of  respect  to  Josephine's  feel 
ings.  (This  has  been  one  of  the  few  points 
in  my  behavior  upon  which  she  has  ever  laid 
particular  stress,  and  I  thank  her  here  public 
ly  for  her  pertinacity.  It  has  saved  me  from 
the  slough  of  utter  carelessness.)  Barring  the 
single  blue  necktie  and  the  *pajamas,  I  drift 
ed  into  and  have  stuck  to  blacks  and  browns 
and  the  least  ostentatious  cuts  until  my  own 
wife  "and  children  have  felt  called  upon  to 
proclaim  me  fusty. 

To  tell  the  truth,  I  had  been  more  or  less 
conscious  for  some  time  of  my  degeneration 
in  this  respect,  but  it  is  no  easy  matter  to  es 
cape  from  a  rut  when  one  is  middle-aged. 
Josephine's  stricture  concerning  the  lack  of 
joyousness  in  my  apparel,  however,  brought 
me  up  standing,  as  the  phrase  is,  and  served 
not  merely  to  spur  me  to  action,  but  to 
crystallize  a  tissue  of  reflections  which  had 
been  churning  in  my  brain  during  a  consid 
erable  period.  One  evening  a  fortnight  later 
I  sauntered  into  the  drawing-room,  where 
my  wife  and  four  children  were  congregated 


A  PHILOSOPHER  49 

round  the  family  lamps,  and  drew  attention 
to  my  appearance  by  a  timorous  cough. 

Josephine  was  the  first  to  look  up.  My 
foot-fall  will  usually  draw  from  her  a  wel 
coming  smile,  but  she  happened  to  be  ab 
sorbed  at  the  moment  in  the  end  of  a  novel, 
the  beginning  of  which  she  was  going  to  read 
later,  so  that  it  was  not  until  I  coughed  that 
she  raised  her  eyes  from  her  book.  For  a 
moment  she  stared  at  me  as  though  she  were 
doubtful  whether  I  was  not  one  of  the  char 
acters  in  whose  vicissitudes  she  had  been  en 
grossed,  then,  letting  the  volume  fall  to  the 
ground,  she  exclaimed  in  a  voice  of  rapture, 
"Children,  look  at  your  father!" 

Boused  from  their  respective  volumes  by 
the  ardor  of  this  exhortation,  my  two  sons 
and  two  daughters  bent  their  critical  eyes 
upon  the  male  author  of  their  being.  It  was 
a  moment  of  sweet  triumph  for  the  old  man 
for  which  he  had  made  the  most  careful 
preparations.  It  was  in  vain  that  their  gim 
let-like  faculties  sought  to  discover  flaws  in 
the  eminently  fashionable  costume  of  white 
striped  serge,  the  brand-new  yellow  shoes, 
the  jaunty  summer  necktie,  and  the  appro 
priate  hat,  whereby  I  was  transformed  from 
4 


50 


THE  OPINIONS  OF 


a  plain  man  to  a  respectable-looking  mem 
ber  of  society.  The  father  who  can  run  the 
gauntlet  of  his  children's  censorship  may 


look  the  cold  world  in  the  face  without  a 
quaver.  Philosophy  has  taught  me  this,  and 
it  was  under  the  spur  of  the  philosophic 
spirit  that  I  had  sought  out  the  most  expen- 


A  PHILOSOPHER  51 

sive  and  most  fashionable  tailor  in  town,  and 
told  him  to  build  me  a  summer  outfit  such  as 
no  one  could  carp  at.  Expense  ?  He  was  to 
spare  none.  Cut  ?  The  latest  and  most  j  oy ous. 

The  children  clapped  their  hands  and 
there  was  a  lively  chorus  of  approval,  and  I 
had  the  satisfaction  of  hearing  Josie,  whose 
hair  is  ornamentally  auburn,  and  whose  face 
reminds  me  of  her  mother  at  the  same  age, 
declare  that  I  looked  "perfectly  scrump 
tious,"  a  sentiment  which,  in  spite  of  its 
flavor  of  school-girl  slang,  seemed  to  express 
the  critical  estimate  of  the  family  circle. 

"I  look  like  a  perfect  idiot,"  I  remarked, 
with  becoming  modesty,  as  I  surveyed  myself 
in  the  glass.  I  did  not  think  so,  all  the  same. 
Indeed,  I  was  saying  to  myself  that  I  had 
had  no  idea  I  could  look  so  well.  Yet,  after 
all,  it  is  other  people  who  decide  whether  one 
looks  like  an  idiot  or  not. 

"  On  the  contrary,"  said  Josephine,  having 
surveyed  me  once  more  from  head  to  foot  to 
make  sure  that  I  was  in  nowise  peculiar,  but 
just  like  everybody  else  (only  nicer,  as  she 
would  say),  "you  look  neat,  and  cool  as  a 
cucumber,  and  five  years  younger.  Doesn't 
he,  dears  ?  " 


52  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

"  I  should  think  so,"  said  little  Fred,  who 
is  aiming  to  be  a  dandy  himself.  "  Father 
has  cut  us  all  out  completely." 

"It  is  a  comfort  to  think  that  I  shall 
no  longer  be  a  disgrace  to  my  family,"  I  re 
marked,  with  humble  mien.  "I  may  add 
that  this  is  not  all.  I  possess  not  merely  this 
costume,  but  I  have  replenished  my  ward 
robe  utterly.  When  you  see  my  new  trou 
sers,  my  new  summer  overcoat,  my  assortment 
of  neckties,  iny  brilliant  shoes — both  patent 
leather  and  strawberry  roan — you  will  no 
longer  be  able  to  state,  Josephine,  that  my 
clothes  lack  joyousness." 

Later  in  the  evening,  after  the  children 
had  gone  to  bed,  Josephine,  who  had  been  up 
stairs  to  inspect  my  purchases,  sat  down  be 
side  me  on  the  sofa,  and  nestled  her  head 
against  my  shoulder. 

"Fred,  you  are  very  good,"  she  said. 
"  It  must  have  bothered  you  terribly  to  get 
all  those  things — you,  who  are  so  busy. 
Everything  is  lovely,  and  the  latest  and  pret 
tiest  of  its  kind.  You  have  shown  exquisite 
taste,  dear ;  but  I  feel  as  though  I  had  bad 
gered  you  into  it,  following  as  it  does  on  top 
of  the  house  and  everything  else." 


A  PHILOSOPHER 


53 


"No,  dearest,"  I  answered,  stroking  her 
hair.  "  I  am  proud  of  you — I  am  grateful 
to  you.  A  man  falls  behind  the  times  before 
he  is  aware  of  it.  The  world  changes  and 
paterfamilias  ought  to  change  with  it  out  of 
consideration  for  his  children.  You  were 


perfectly  right,  Josephine,  just  as  you  were 
right  about  the  moving.  Our  house  was  too 
small  and  I  was  getting  to  look  fusty  and 
frowsy." 

"  Not  so  bad  as  that,  Fred.  I  never  said 
that  you  didn't  look  perfectly  clean  and  re 
spectable.  All  I  meant  was  that  there  are 
such  pretty  things  now,  it  seems  a  pity  not 


54  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

to  wear  them.  It  wasn't  tlie  fashion  to  wear 
them  when  you  were  young.  I  mean  young 
er  than  you  are  now,"  she  added,  patting  my 
cheek.  "  I  am  glad,  Fred,  that  you  are  rec 
onciled  to  the  house.  I  know  that  I  have 
been  a  thorn  in  your  flesh  for  the  last  eigh 
teen  months  on  account  of  it.  I  didn't 
mean  to  be  irritating  about  the  moving,  but 
I  was,  and  my  soul  has  been  wearing  sack 
cloth  and  ashes  ever  since  because  I  was  so 
nasty.  You  see,  Fred,  in  the  first  place, 
though  I  pretended  to  be  pleased  at  your  se 
lecting  the  house,  I  was  really  dreadfully  dis 
appointed,  for  half  the  fun  of  a  new  house  is 
choosing  it.  Of  course  a  new  house  chosen  by 
some  one  else  is  better  than  none  at  all,  but  a 
woman  hates  surprises  of  that  sort,  and  some 
how  my  teeth  were  set  on  edge  by  the  few 
things  about  the  house  that  didn't  suit  me. 
And  then,  dear,"  she  continued,  caressingly, 
"  I  don't  think  it  was  very  nice  of  me  to  med 
dle  with  your  great-grandfather  Plunkett's 
portrait.  It  was  too  much  in  the  line  of  the 
people  who  have  their  ancestors  painted  to 
order.  I  think  of  it  quite  often  at  night  and 
blush,  which  shows  that  I  have  a  guilty  con 
science  on  the  subject,  though  I  can't  help 


A  PHILOSOPHER  55 

feeling  that  it  has  been  very  much  improved 
whenever  I  look  at  it." 

"It  was  a  very  trifling  amelioration,"  I 
answered.  "  And,  if  I  remember  rightly,  it 
was  I  who  put  you  up  to  it." 

"Yes,  but  you  were  only  in  jest,  and  I  was 
base  enough  to  adopt  the  idea  and  act  upon 
it.  No,  Fred,  though  I  agree  that  everything 
has  worked  out  a  great  deal  more  satisfac 
torily  than  I  deserve,  and  that  we  are  infi 
nitely  better  off  than  we  have  ever  been  be 
fore  in  point  of  comfort  and  general  happi 
ness,  I  look  back  on  the  last  year  and  a  half 
as  a  sort  of  nightmare.  You  were  content  to 
live  along  steadily  in  the  dear  old  house  and 
to  toil  unselfishly  for  us  all,  and  I  was  per 
petually  prodding  you.  It  has  made  me  feel 
myself  to  be  a  perfect  ogre  of  a  woman. 
And  yet  it  seemed  to  me  to  be  necessary, 
Fred." 

"  It  was  not  merely  necessary,  Josephine. 
It  was  essential.  Thank  goodness  we  have 
got  through  it  so  lightly !  It  is  not  every 
man  who  survives  the  operation.  But,  as  I 
have  said  to  you  already,  I  am  the  one  who 
should  be  grateful,  and  I  too  was  the  one  at 
fault.  Had  you  waited  for  me  to  make  the 


56  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

suggestion,  we  should  have  been  still  in  that 
dirty  little  box  of  a  house,  and  I  should  have 
been  wearing  the  same  black  wisp  of  a  neck 
tie  such  as  I  have  worn  for  the  last  fifteen 
years.  Kiss  me,  darling." 

She  did  so,  and  as  she  leaned  her  head 
lovingly  against  my  breast  she  looked  up  and 
said,  tremulously :  "It  was  all  on  account  of 
the  children,  Fred.  I  wish  them  to  have 
every  chance  there  is."  There  spoke  the 
fond  mother-bird.  The  children  !  Are  these 
young  giants  and  giantesses  our  children? 
Seemingly  but  yesterday  they  were  little  tots 
pottering  in  the  sand  with  spade  and  shovel, 
alternately  angelic  and  demoniac,  supplying 
annual  testimony  to  the  inability  of  green 
apples  to  oppress  a  hardy  digestion,  and  free 
from  every  inkling  of  responsibility  save  a 
faint,  intermittent  respect  for  parental  man 
date.  Now  they  tower  before  me  in  the 
glory  of  budding  manhood  and  maidenhood  ; 
lovable,  yet  haughty ;  with  star-like  eyes  and 
brows  perplexed  by  all  the  problems  of  the 
universe  ;  God-like  in  their  devotion  to  prin 
ciple,  though  distressingly  eager  for  pocket- 
money. 

"Fred,"  whispers  the  dear  woman  at  my 


A  PHILOSOPHER  57 

side,  breaking  in  upon  my  cogitation,  "  what 
were  you  like  as  a  boy — er — a  young  man,  I 
mean?  " 

Her  words  are  the  answering  echo  to  my 
own  secret  thought.  Like  myself  she  is  grop 
ing  for  light  and  counsel.  May  not  the  clev 
erest  man.  and  woman  fitly  quail  before  the 
soul-hunger  of  eager  adolescent  youth  ?  And 
I  do  not  profess  to  be  clever. 

"  What  were  you  like  as  a  young  woman  ?  " 

"I  was  afraid  you  would  make  that  an 
swer,"  she  murmurs,  reproachfully.  "  Oh,  I 
have  forgotten !  " 

"  And  if  we  could  remember,  Josephine,  it 
would  not  help  us  very  much.  Each  genera 
tion  finds  the  world  a  virgin  field.  Some 
how,  though,  I  had  fancied  that  when  we  had 
seen  them  through  the  scarlet  fever  and 
landed  them  in  college,  it  would  be  plain 
sailing.  We  have  to  begin  all  over  again, 
though,  and  the  second  half  promises  to  be 
the  most  difficult." 

"  I  know  it.  And  think  how  we  worried, 
or  rather  tried  not  to  worry,  over  them  when 
they  were  little  things,  and  how  we  fancied 
there  were  no  problems  to  compare  in  diffi 
culty  with  supplying  them  with  proper  food 


58  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

and  proper  masters.  In  the  last  fifteen  years 
they  have  had  everything  —  chicken-pox, 
measles,  whooping-cough,  mumps,  and  scar 
let  fever.  And  they've  collected  everything 
— postage -stamps,  minerals,  butterflies,  coins, 
and  cigarette  pictures.  And  they've  -  kept 
everything — rabbits,  goats,  bull-terriers,  white 
mice,  a  pony,  and  guinea-pigs." 

"And  owned,  and  subsequently  discarded, 
to  my  certain  knowledge,  a  music-box,  doll's- 
house,  puppet-show,  printing-press,  steam- 
engine,  aquarium,  and  camera." 

"Yes,  and  over  and  above  their  school 
learning  they've  been  taught  to  swim,  ride, 
dance,  use  tools,  play  on  the  piano,  and 
speak  fair  to  middling  French.  Yet,  as  you 
say,  Fred,  the  most  difficult  part  is  to  come, 
just  as  we  fancied,  that  we  were  through. 
And  the  terrible  reflection  is  that  we're  not 
so  sure  now  what  we  ought  to  do  for  them  as 
we  were  when  they  were  younger." 

"Precisely,  dear." 

"  And  it  seems  sometimes  very  strange  to 
me,  Fred,  that  though  they've  eaten  out  of 
the  same  dish,  as  it  were,  all  their  days,  and 
had  the  same  opportunities,  they  should  be 
so  totally  unlike  one  another  physically,  men- 


A  PHILOSOPHER  59 

tally,  and  morally.  It's  impossible  to  lay 
down  any  hard-and-fast  rule  for  them  now, 
as  one  could  when  they  were  little." 

It  is  indeed.  I  see  them  on  the  threshold 
of  manhood  and  maidenhood  looking  up  to 
my  wife  and  me  for  guidance  and  counsel, 
though  they  pretend  to  be  sufficient  to  them 
selves  in  matters  of  judgment.  A  word  of 
encouragement  or  of  disapproval  from  us 
may  be  the  turning-point  in  their  destinies, 
may  set  the  seal  on  what  they  are  to  become. 
Even  as  the  flowers  are  drawn  by  the  sun 
and  the  willows  follow  the  prevailing  wind, 
their  young  lives  may  be  turned  to  good  or 
saved  from  ill  by  our  loving  sympathy  or  re 
monstrance  in  the  nick  of  time.  We  clinch 
our  fingers  in  the  stress  of  uncertainty. 
Good  counsel  ?  Yes,  a  thousand  times  yes  ; 
but  who  will  counsel  the  counsellors  ? 

How  the  world  has  changed  since  Joseph 
ine  and  I  were  their  age !  More  particu 
larly  that  choicest  section  of  it  which  we 
were  taught  to  think  and  speak  of  as  the 
land  of  the  free  and  the  home  of  the  brave. 
As  I  look  back  now  in  philosophic  mood, 
simplicity  seems  to  me  to  have  been  the  key 
note  of  our  day.  Not  merely  had  the  glad- 


60  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

some  flannel  costume  and  the  Indian  pajamas 
not  yet  begun  to  force  an  issue  with  the  or 
atorical  black  broadcloth  coat  and  the  up- 
and-down  white  nightgown.  There  were  no 
shingle  stains  to  speak  of  but  those  of  time 
and  eternity,  and  he  who  owned  a  vehicle  of 
any  kind  must  needs  be  careful  that  it  was 
of  sombre  hue  and  homely  pattern.  Among 
the  fixed  truths  which  we  imbibed  with  the 
maternal  milk,  and  from  the  prejudice  of 
which  I  never  expect  to  be  wholly  free,  were 
these  :  That  though  the  blatant  blast  of  the 
"Western  politician  offend  the  sensitive  ear  of 
culture  by  exaggeration,  it  is  still  true  that 
we  are  the  greatest  nation  under  the  sun  by 
virtue  of  our  total  disregard  of  everything 
which  other  nations  have  held  fast  to ;  that 
the  American  woman  is  a  newly  created  spe 
cies  ;  that  George  Washington  never  told  a 
lie ;  that  though  France  was  on  our  side  in 
our  struggle  for  Independence,  for  which  we 
should  ever  be  profoundly  grateful,  the  cus 
tom  of  handing  over  young  people  to  be 
married  at  parental  dictate,  coupled  with  cer 
tain  hoarse  suspicions  of  an  unmentionable 
character,  must  be  an  everlasting  barrier  be 
tween  us  and  the  Gaul ;  that,  nevertheless, 


A  PHILOSOPHER  61 

if  a  man  will  have  his  fling,  he  may  do  so  in 
Paris  once  without  being  held  to  strict  ac 
count  for  it,  provided  that  he  comes  home 
and  lives  a  respectable  life  ever  after  on  this 
side  the  water  ;  that  Russia's  ill  treatment  of 
the  serf  and  general  barbaric  conditions  are 
to  be  overlooked  on  account  of  the  friendli 
ness  she  displayed  toward  us  in  our  hour  of 
need,  barbarism  being  on  the  whole  a  less 
crucial  blemish  than  the  above-mentioned 
peculiarities  of  our  other  ally;  and  that 
everyone  should  hitch  his  wagon  to  a  star. 

In  this  last  injunction  lay,  perhaps,  the 
gist  of  the  whole  matter.  To  hitch  one's 
wagon  to  a  star  was  to  be,  primarily,  a  plain 
person,  to  go  in  for  truth,  patriotism,  fineness 
of  soul,  long  hours  of  labor,  little  exercise  and 
no  vacations,  pies  and  doughnuts,  ugliness  of 
physical  surroundings,  and  squeaky  feminine 
voices.  Public  opinion  justified  making  all 
the  money  one  could,  provided  it  was  not 
spent  in  rendering  life  ornate  or  beautiful. 
So  lived  our  fathers  and  mothers,  our  up 
right,  vigorous,  single-minded,  ascetic  prede 
cessors  ;  and  in  our  day  their  precepts  were 
still  held  in  reverence.  Yet  even  then  there 
were  indications  of  a  change.  The  newly 


or  THK 


62  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

created  species  took  it  into  her  head  to  look 
around  her,  especially  in  summer,  first  by 
itineraries  along  the  rock-bound  coast  of  her 
native  land,  and  later  by  amazon-like  pilgrim 
ages  abroad.  She  invented  Bar  Harbor,  and 
while  electrified  Europe  held  its  breath  per 
ambulated  Paris  alone  and  climbed  Mont 
Blanc  with  a  single  man.  She  also  made 
the  pertinent  discovery  that  her  popper's 
purse  was  pudgy  with  the  proceeds  of  wheat, 
corn,  dry  goods,  and  railway  shares.  Though 
she  still  urged  the  successive  youths  who 
strolled  and  sat  under  her  Japanese  sunshade 
to  hitch  their  wagons  to  heavenly  bodies,  she 
gave  it  sweetly,  and  little  by  little  to  be  un 
derstood  that  chastity  among  women  and  high 
resolve  among  men  need  not  preclude  more 
picturesque  paraphernalia  and  a  broader 
field  of  investigation.  She  bought  French 
clothes  ;  her  brothers  took  the  hint  from  her, 
and  hied  them  to  Paris  and  Vienna  to  pursue 
their  studies ;  penetrated  to  Pekin  and  Con 
stantinople,  and  hunted  the  tiger  in  the  jun 
gles  of  India,  while  popper's  pudgy  purse 
grew  more  and  more  plethoric  despite  the 
drafts  upon  it.  Purification  by  pie  waned,  and 
the  first  Queen  Anne  cottage  reared  its  head. 


A  PHILOSOPHER  63 

I  wooed  and  won  Josephine  in  those  early, 
transitory  days  when  the  influence  of  the 
past  was  still  upon  us,  though  we  foresaw 
and  caught  glimpses  of  the  new.  We  were 
simple  souls.  I  believed  that  Josephine's 
wagon  was  hitched  to  a  star;  else  I  could 
not  have  loved  her.  And  she  believed  the 
same  of  mine.  She  wandered  in  the  panoply 
of  her  maiden  independence  to  far-off  rook 
eries  attended  by  me  only  (or  some  other 
svvTain  only).  Though  we  were  fain  to  dis 
cuss  De  Musset  and  Herbert  Spencer,  Dar 
win  and  Dobson,  George  Eliot  and  Philip 
Gilbert  Hamerton — strange  names  to  the 
elder  generation — our  scheme  of  life  was 
still  essentially  grave  and  plain  for  all  Jo 
sephine's  Japanese  sunshade  and  tendency  to 
make  the  most  of  her  willowy  figure.  Little 
did  we  dream  of  the  later  development  which, 
like  a  huge  wave,  was  to  sweep  over  the  land 
of  the  free  and  the  home  of  the  brave,  over 
whelming  its  native  simplicity  with  the  virt 
ues,  tastes,  and  vices  of  the  other  nations 
against  which  our  forefathers  barred  the 
door.  Palaces  in  all  but  the  name  stand 
where  the  buffalo  was  wont  to  disport  him 
self,  and  where  the  American  eagle  in  hu- 


6±  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

man  form  once  napped  his  wings  and  scream 
ed  most  viciously  in  contempt  of  the  effete 
civilization  of  the  older  world.  Sons  and 
daughters  of  the  pioneers  who  bolted  their 
dinners  on  the  stroke  of  twelve  find  seven 
too  early  for  elegant  convenience;  Among 
the  reddest  and  palest  of  hot-house  roses, 
which  deck  their  tables,  glisten  glass  of  Ve 
netian  pattern  and  china  from  the  bankrupt 
stock  of  kings.  According  to  their  intellect 
ualities  their  talk  is  of  labor  and  capital,  of 
working-girls'  clubs  and  model  tenement- 
houses,  of  Buddha  and  Zola,  of  foreign  titles, 
and  transplanted  fox-hunting.  To-day  a  hun 
dred  thousand  dollars  is  barely  a  competency, 
and  a  building  less  than  a  dozen  stories  high 
dwarfs  the  highway  of  trade.  The  vestibule 
limited,  the  ocean  greyhound,  the  Atlantic 
cable,  and  the  voice-bearing  telephone  have 
made  all  nations  kin,  and  bid  fair  to  amal 
gamate  society.  Even  the  newly  created 
species  condescends  to  swap  her  birthright 
for  a  coronet. 

All  this  has  come  to  pass  while  Josephine 
and  I  have  been  plodding  along  the  route  of 
all  flesh,  trying  not  to  forget  our  early  aspi 
rations.  We  have  changed  our  dinner-hour 


A  PHILOSOPHER  65 

with  the  rest  of  the  world ;  we  have  learned 
to  talk  more  or  less  unintelligently  about  the 
sweating  system  and  Buddhism ;  we  have 
bowed  our  necks  to  the  yoke  of  the  electric 
wire.  Now  that  Josephine  has  spurred  me 
on  to  it,  I  have  even  bought  a  modern  house, 
and  replenished  my  wardrobe  so  as  to  keep 
pace  with  thought  and  custom.  But,  never 
theless,  sitting  here  in  my  renovated  easy- 
chair,  with  my  feet  stretched  toward  the  brass 
andirons  which  were  the  pride  of  one  of  my 
great-grandmothers,  listening  to  the  ticking 
of  the  old-fashioned  clock  which  belonged 
to  another  of  them,  and  conscious  that  the 
eyes  of  my  most  distinguished  ancestor  are 
looking  down  at  me  from  the  wall,  I  feel 
bewildered,  as  it  were,  by  this  latter-day 
metamorphosis,  bristling  with  new  and  for 
midable  problems.  Whither  is  civilization 
tending?  What  is  one  to  think  of  it  all? 
And  by  the  shades  of  my  forefathers,  puri 
fied  by  pie,  how  shall  we  best  help  our  sons 
and  daughters  to  hitch  their  wagons  to 
stars?  That  is  what  is  worrying  Josephine 
and  me. 


OF  THB 


IV 


WE    have  just   faced   our   first   serious 
problem. 

Said  my  wife  to  me  one  day  not  long  ago, 
handing  me  the  newspaper 
as  she  spoke,  "  Look  at  this, 
my  dear.  Little  Fred  has 
been  selected  to  play  on  the 
University  foot-ball  eleven." 
By  way  of  contradistinc 
tion  to  me,  who  am  rather 
short  and  slight,  my  name 
sake  and  eldest  son  is  still 
habitually  spoken  of  in  the 
family  as  Little  Fred,  not 
withstanding  that  he  is  a 
head  taller  than  I,  and  a  strongly  built, 
muscular  youth  into  the  bargain.  He  is 
in  college  —  a  sophomore  —  and  I  do  not 
hesitate  to  declare  that  when  he  left  school 
he  was  about  as  clean  cut  a  young  fellow, 


OPINIONS  OF  A  PHILOSOPHER        67 

both  mentally  and  physically,  as  anyone 
would  wish  to  see.  I  have  always  encour 
aged  him  to  take  a  sensible  amount  of  exer 
cise  and  have  been  glad  that  he  seemed  fond 
of  the  athletic  sports  in  vogue  among  the 
growing  lads  of  the  country  and  did  not  need 
to  be  prodded,  like  his  brother  David  for 
instance,  to  keep  out  of  doors.  I  have  been 
aware  that  he  has  been  a  prominent  member 
of  an  amateur  base-ball  nine  and  foot-ball 
eleven,  and  I  have  been  proud  to  follow  in  a 
confused  sort  of  fashion,  for  the  technical 
terms  have  changed  sadly  since  I  was  a  boy, 
the  defeats  and  victories,  principally  the  lat 
ter,  I  think,  of  those  illustrious  organiza 
tions.  Although  I  was  never  his  equal  phys 
ically,  I  look  back  with  considerable  pride 
to  my  own  foot-ball  days,  and  my  children 
have  heard  me  repeatedly  describe  the  fa 
mous  dash  which  I  once  ma(Je  with  the  ball 
from  one  end  of  the  field  to  the  other,  with 
Tom  Ruggs,  the  butcher's  boy,  at  my  heels, 
and  how  he  never  caught  me  until  after  I 
had  sent  it  flying  over  the  goal  line,  and  we 
had  won  the  game.  That  was  a  long  time 
ago  now,  and  we  played  a  very  different  game, 
as  I  have  since  discovered.  I  hear  a  great 


68 


THE  OPINIONS  OF 


deal  said  nowadays  about  the  lack  of  atten 
tion  which  the  older  generation  gave  to 
manly  sports.  We  did  not  make  much  fuss 
about  them,  I  agree,  and 
consequently  some  boys 
may  have  been  allowed 
to  grow  to  manhood  with 
out  proper  physical  train 
ing  ;  but  it  seems  to  me 
that  most  of  us  were 
playing  something  in  the 
fresh  air  the  greater  por 
tion  of  the  time.  How 
ever,  I  have  always  been 
a  great  believer  in  manly 
sports  and  I  wish  to  con 
tinue  to  be. 

When  my  boy  entered 
college  I  remember  tell 
ing  him  kindly  but  ex 
plicitly  that  it  was  a  cost 
ly  matter  to  send  him 
there,  and  that  I 

w.^.-v^*.  7 

should  expect  him 
to  make  the  most  of  the  opportunities  for 
improvement  which  were  offered  him.  I 
knew  that  he  was  not  especially  clever  at  his 


A  PHILOSOPHER  69 

books  like  his  brother  David,  yet  at  the  same 
time  I  had  set  him  down  as  a  sensible,  wide 
awake  fellow  with  at  least  an  average  amount 
of  brains  and  with  plenty  of  tact  and  com 
mon  sense.  It  was  my  hope  that  he  would 
devote  himself  to  political  economy  and 
mathematics,  in  which  case  I  should  try  and 
find  an  opening  for  him  after  graduation  with 
the  firm  of  Leggatt  &  Paine,  our  leading 
bankers.  I  expected,  of  course,  that  he 
would  continue  to  take  a  suitable  amount 
of  exercise,  to  keep  himself  in  good  trim ; 
row  on  the  river  and  not  altogether  renounce 
base-ball.  Indeed,  although  I  was  aware 
that  collegiate  sports  were  a  much  more  seri 
ous  tax  on  a  student's  time  than  in  my  day, 
I  should  not  have  seriously  demurred  had 
he  been  selected  to  row  on  the  University 
crew  or  play  on  the  University  base -ball  nine. 
I  should  have  greatly  preferred  to  have  him 
steer  clear  of  both  ;  still,  I  try  to  remember 
that  I  was  once  his  age  myself,  and  I  am 
given  to  understand  that  the  rivalry  between 
the  several  colleges  in  these  matters  is  more 
intense  than  ever.  There  was  a  time  when 
nothing  seemed  to  me  of  such  vital  interest 
as  whether  Harvard  or  Yale  won  the  boat 


70  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

race.  The  Darwinian  theory  paled  in  com 
parative  importance  beside  it.  Indeed,  I 
still  take  more  interest  in  it  than  it  deserves, 
perhaps.  Nevertheless,  I  took  pains  to  im 
press  upon  Fred  that  his  studies  were  to  be 
his  first  consideration. 

We  did  not  play  foot-ball  in  college  when  I 
was  there,  which  was  the  reason,  perhaps, 
why  I  assumed  that  it  was  a  boy's  game,  to 
be  shuffled  off  with  other  purely  youthful 
sports  when  one  became  a  dignified  student. 
I  had  heard  here  and  there  the  statement  that 
it  was  a  rough  game,  which  did  not  impress 
me  very  much,  recalling  as  I  did  my  own 
hacked  shins.  It  was  not  until  I  read  my 
friend  Horace  Plympton's  letter  to  the  Even 
ing  Times,  that  my  attention  was  particu 
larly  called  to  the  matter.  Horace  seemed  to 
have  lashed  himself  into  a  perfect  fury  on  the 
subject.  He  stigmatized  the  modern  game  as 
it  was  played  by  University  students  as  a  bar 
baric  spectacle,  dangerous  to  limb,  if  not  to 
life.  Horace  has  always  been  more  or  less 
of  a  pepper-pot,  but  he  is  not  exactly  a 
croaker,  and  he  served  in  the  war  with  dis 
tinction.  Hence  his  diatribe  made  me  frown, 
even  though  it  rather  amused  me.  It  was 


A  PHILOSOPHER  71 

written  in  the  autumn  of  the  year  before  Fred 
went  to  Cambridge,  and  I  read  it  aloud  to 
the  family  circle  as  being  of  interest  to  a 
sub-freshman. 

"  What  perfect  nonsense  !  "  exclaimed  that 
profound  young  gentleman,  when  I  had  fin 
ished.  "  The  man  who  wrote  that  letter  is  a 
nub-dub,  father." 

Though  not  aware  of  the  precise  meaning 
of  this  epithet,  I  realized  that  it  was  a  severe 
arraignment.  I  felt,  too,  that  my  manner  of 
reading  the  communication  had  given  license 
to  my  boy's  tongue.  I  answered,  therefore, 
with  some  unction  : 

"  The  writer,  Horace  Plympton,  is  a  brave 
and  sensible  man.  I  know  him  very  well." 

"  I  guess  he  never  kicked  foot-ball." 

"  In  his  day  the  young  men  who  were  fort 
unate  enough  to  be  sent  to  college  were  better 
occupied.  Foot-ball  ?  It  is  a  game  for  high- 
schools,  not  universities." 

"  It  is  the  greatest  game  of  the  day,  father," 
said  my  sub-freshman,  with  the  haughty  con 
sciousness  of  superior  knowledge  which  the 
waning,  though  reigning,  generation  has  so 
often  to  bow  to. 

Of  course  that  settled  the  question.     I  be- 


72  THE   OPINIONS  OF 

lieve  that  I  made  a  futile  remark  to  the  effect 
that  the  president  ought  to  put  a  stop  to  it, 
or  something  of  the  sort,  but  I  knew  enough 
to  know  that  I  hod  been  convicted  of  error. 
I  saw  Fred  glanc  v,at  his  sisters,  and  all  three 
at  their  mother,  wno  looked  anxious  in  her 
desire  not  to  seem  to  take  sides  against 
me,  though  manifestly  sympathizing  with 
them.  I  said  to  myself  that  if  foot-ball  was 
the  greatest  game  of  the  day,  I  was  not  going 
to  put  my  foot  down  and  prevent  my  boys 
from  playing  it  merely  because  I  was  old  fogy 
enough  not  to  understand  that  it  was  the 
greatest  game  of  the  day,  and  Horace  Plymp- 
ton  had  written  a  letter  to  the  Evening 
Times.  Accordingly,  when  the  time  came 
for  Fred  to  go  to  college  I  merely  cautioned 
him  generally  against  wasting  his  time,  and 
uttered  no  fulminations  against  foot-ball  in 
particular. 

"  On  the  University  foot-ball  eleven  ?  "  I 
echoed,  taking  the  newspaper  from  my  wife, 
and  as  I  read  I  felt  a  little  lump  of  emotional 
pride  rise  in  my  throat.  There  it  was,  sure 
enough,  in  black  and  white,  though  I  could 
not  help  wondering  why  the  fact  was  of  im 
portance  enough  to  be  chronicled  in  the  daily 


IFORI 


A  PHILOSOPHER  73 

press  along  with  the  telegraphic  news,  and 
the  deaths  and  marriages.  It  was  evidently  a 
matter  of  considerable  moment,  though  I 
could  not  quite  see  why. 

"  He  will  be  perfectly  delighted,"  said  Jo 
sephine.  "  He  has  been  extremely  doubtful 
whether  he  would  be  chosen.  Oh,  Fred," 
she  exclaimed,  in  a  tone  of  solicitude,  "  do 
you  really  think  it's  safe  ?  " 

How  exactly  that  was  like  a  woman.  Here 
was  my  wife,  who  had  secretly  aided  and 
abetted  her  son  in  his  design,  and  been  the 
recipient  of  his  hopes  and  fears  on  the  sub 
ject,  turning  to  me,  who  had  dared  to  utter  a 
feeble  protest  or  two  only  to  be  scoffed  at, 
and  summarily  sat  upon,  asking  if  the  game 
was  really  safe. 

"  There  are  certain  risks  in  this  world  that 
a  man  has  to  take,"  I  answered,  borrowing  the 
sentiment  which  she  had  uttered  on  the  occa 
sion  of  our  affair  with  the  burglars. 

Josephine  did  not  appreciate  my  irony. 
"  Why,  oh  why,  did  you  give  your  consent  to 
his  playing  foot-ball  ?  "  she  asked,  tragically. 
"I  understand  that  it  is  a  terribly  rough  and 
dangerous  game." 

"  I  give  my  consent  ?     This  is  monstrous, 


74  THE   OPINIONS   OF 

Josephine,  monstrous.  I  did  not  wish  to  be 
a  killjoy  and  a  marplot,  or  I  would  have  for 
bidden  Fred  to  touch  a  foot-ball  after  he  en 
tered  college.  Had  you,  my  dear,  given  me 
the  least  bit  of  support,  I  should  have  nipped 
the  whole  business  in  the  bud.  Yet  now  you 
seek  to  throw  the  blame  on  me." 

The  suggestion  of  the  dire  parental  stern 
ness  of  which  I  had  evidently  just  missed 
being  guilty  caused  her  thoughts  to  fly  off  on 
an  opposite  tack.  "  The  poor  darling,  his 
heart  was  so  set  on  being  chosen,"  she  said. 
"  I  am  sure,  Fred,  it  would  have  been  a  ter 
rible  blow  to  him  if  he  had  not  succeeded." 

"  I  dare  say  that  it  was  his  chief  motive  in 
going  to  college,"  I  interjected,  a  little  in 
dignantly. 

"  I  really  think  it  was,"  she  murmured, 
with  sweet  maternal  sympathy.  "I  shall 
live  though  in  constant  dread  until  it  is  over 
and  done  with." 

"  What  is  over  and  done  with  ?  " 

"  The  Harvard-Yale  foot-ball  match.  It's 
on  account  of  that  he's  been  so  anxious 
to  belong.  And,  Fred,  he  said  to  me  the 
other  day  that  if  he  was  chosen,  he  hoped 
that  we  would  go  to  Springfield  to  see  the 


A  PHILOSOPHER  75 

game.  It  is  terrible  to  think  that  I  might 
see  him  killed  before  my  eyes,  but  he  is  set 
on  our  going." 

"  It  is  all  a  piece  of  infernal  nonsense,"  I 
remarked,  with  majestic  dignity;  neverthe 
less,  the  idea  did  not  strike  me  as  a  bad  one. 
To  tell  the  truth,  I  was  beginning  to  be  curi 
ous  to  see  this  game,  which,  according  to  the 
views  of  my  eldest  son,  was  the  greatest 
game  of  the  day,  and  to  those  of  Horace 
Plympton  a  barbaric  spectacle. 

And  now  befell  me  a  curious  experience ; 
at  least  it  seemed  to  me  such.  I  found  that 
I,  who,  though  considered  an  industrious  and 
painstaking  lawyer,  have  never  awakened 
any  especial  interest  in  the  community,  had 
acquired  lustre  and  importance  by  virtue  of 
the  circumstance  that  I  had  a  son  on  the 
University  foot-ball  eleven.  College  gradu 
ates  of  various  ages,  who  had  hitherto  classed 
me  with  the  general  run  of  their  acquaint 
ance,  grew  suddenly  cordial  and  congratula 
tory  in  their  manner,  and  I  had  the  satisfac 
tion  of  reading  in  the  public  prints  an  item 

to  the  effect  that  Frederick ,  the  father 

of  the  well-known  half-back  of  the  Harvard 
University  foot-ball  eleven,  had  recently  vis- 


76 


THE  OPINIONS  OF 


ited  New  York  for  a  few  days.     Altogether 
I  had  become,  for  the  first  time  in  my  exist- 


ence,  an  object  of  consequence  to  my  fellow- 
citizens,  and  almost  to  the  world  at  large. 

As  for  the  hero  himself,  he  bore  his  im 
portance  modestly   and  meekly,   though   he 


A   PHILOSOPHER  77 

evidently  considered  that  lie  had  rescued  the 
family  name  from  obscurity  and  set  it  glori 
ously  in  the  public  eye  by  dint  of  his  re 
nown.  He  was  in  strict  training,  and  fierce 
ly  conscientious  as  to  what  he  ate  and  drank, 
and  as  to  his  hours  of  sleep.  Little  was 
heard  in  the  house  when  he  was  at  home  but 
conjecture  and  estimate  as  to  who  was  likely 
to  win  in  the  impending  contest.  Had  I 
been  properly  attentive,  I  might  have  learned 
from  his  lips  not  merely  the  names  and  nick 
names  of  the  members  of  the  respective 
teams  and  the  positions  on  the  field  they 
were  to  fill,  but  their  weights  in  fighting  trim, 
their  fine  points  both  as  foot-ball  kickers 
and  as  men,  and  not  improbably  their  love 
affairs.  When  now  and  then,  as  occasionally 
happened,  I  betrayed  by  an  unfortunate 
question  or  by  unappreciative  silence  my  lack 
of  familiarity  with  this  or  that  celebrity,  the 
look  of  wondering  pity  with  which  my  boy, 
and  indeed  every  member  of  the  family,  re 
garded  me  made  me  feel  myself  to  be  a  veri 
table  ignoramus.  Josephine  and  her  girls 
knew  the  whole  business  from  beginning  to 
end,  and  I  must  confess  that  I  secretly  drank 
in  more  than  I  pretended. 


78  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

A  fortnight  before  the  match  was  to  come 
off  Sam  Bangs,  who,  as  some  of  yon  will  re 
member,  is  a  second  cousin  of  mine  and  rather 
a  pal  of  Josephine's,  appeared  at  the  house 
one  evening  and  laid  before  me,  in  his  en 
gaging,  plausible  fashion,  a  project  which  he 
and  his  wife  and  my  wife  had  cooked  up  be 
tween  them.  He  and  Josephine  assured  me, 
in  the  first  place,  that  I  wouldn't  have  the 
least  bother  in  the  matter,  and  that  every 
thing  would  be  perfectly  plain  running  for 
the  reason  that  Sam  was  intimate  with  the 
manager  of  the  railroad,  and  that  little  Fred 
had  secured  the  requisite  number  of  tickets 
for  the  game.  Then  he  proceeded  to  inform 
me  that  they  had  conceived  the  idea  of  go 
ing  to  see  the  game  at  Springfield  in  a 
private  special  car;  that  the  manager  had 
promised  to  let  him  have  one,  and  that  it 
would  be  much  more  jolly  to  go  with  a  few 
friends  like  that  and  have  luncheon  comfort 
ably  served  by  a  caterer  than  to  be  lumped 
in  the  common  cars  with  Tom,  Dick,  and 
Harry,  who  were  liable  to  be  noisy  students, 
or  still  more  noisy  prize-fighters,  and  starve ; 
that  there  were  several  people  crazy  to  go 
whom  it  would  be  very  pleasant  to  have, 


A  PHILOSOPHER  79 

notably  Mrs.  Guy  Sloane  and  Mrs.  Walter 
Warner  (nee  Polly  Flinders),  and  that  the 
expense  would  be  comparatively  trifling. 

"  I  think  it  would  be  particularly  nice,  Fred, 
on  Josie's  account,"  added  my  wife.  "  I  should 
ask  two  or  three  of  her  girls,  and  some 
boys  to  match.  She  is  inclined  to  be  shy, 
and  this  would  be  just  the  occasion  to  help 
her  to  feel  at  her  ease  with  young  men.  Then 
I  thought  you  would  like  to  have  a  chat  with 
Polly  WTarner;  you  so  rarely  see  her  now, 
and  you  and  she  used  to  get  on  so  well  to 
gether;  and  you  know  Mrs.  Guy  Sloane 
always  stimulates  you.  I  think  you  would 
have  a  very  good  time ;  and,  as  Sam  says,  it's 
a  Dutch  treat,  so  the  expense  would  fall  on 
everybody  alike." 

Seeing  that  Josephine's  heart  was  set  on 
going  in  just  that  way,  I  did  not  attempt  to 
interpose  objections.  I  took  the  liberty, 
however,  of  remarking  that,  though  we  as 
the  parents  of  one  of  the  players  had  a  reason 
for  going,  I  could  not  understand  why  a  culti 
vated  woman  like  Mrs.  Guy  Sloane  was  will 
ing,  crazy  indeed  according  to  what  they  had 
said,  to  take  so  much  trouble  to  see  a  pack 
of  college  youths  knock  each  other  about.  In 


80  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

answer  to  this,  Sam  declared  that  every  man, 
woman,  and  child  in  the  city  who  could  pos 
sibly  get  away  was  going  to  Springfield  ;  that 
trains  were  to  be  run  every  fifteen  minutes, 
and  that  no  less  than  twenty  special  private 
cars  in  addition  to  ours  had  been  chartered 
for  the  occasion.  Again  I  hung  my  dimin 
ished  head  before  this  broadside  of  superior 
information. 

Sam  was  perfectly  right.  I  have  rarely 
seen  such  a  crowd  in  a  small  compass  as  was 
collected  at  the  railway  station  before  we 
started.  How  we  ever  reached  Sam,  who 
made  himself  visible  to  me  at  last  across 
an  ocean  of  heads  by  lifting  himself  on  the 
shoulders  of  obliging  friends,  and  found  our 
special  car  seems  mysterious  to  me  as  I 
look  back  upon  it.  It  really  appeared  as 
though  every  man,  woman,  and  child  in  the 
city  were  going,  from  the  highest  officials  of 
the  State  and  our  leading  citizens  in  various 
fields  to  the  veriest  street  Arab  who  had 
managed  to  beg,  borrow,  or  earn  the  req 
uisite  fare.  Everybody,  or  nearly  every 
body,  carried  a  flag,  and  Josephine  seemed 
to  think  that  I,  as  a  Harvard  man  and  the 
father  of  the  half-back  of  the  team,  was 


A  PHILOSOPHER 


81 


lacking  in  enthusiasm  because  I  had  not  got 
possession  of  one. 

"  It  will  be  time  enough  for  enthu 
siasm  when  we  win  the  match,"  I  re 
marked,  sententiously,  though  what 
with  the  general  crowd  and  the  files 
of    students    bubbling   over   with 
Bah-rah-rahs  as  they  tore   along 


82  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

the  platform  to  find  seats  in  the  several 
trains,  I  was  beginning  to  feel  very  tremu 
lous  about  the  gills,  so  to  speak. 

I  doubt  if  Josephine  heard  my  answer. 
Her  attention  had  suddenly*  been  absorbed 
by  the  sight  of  Mrs.  "Willoughby  Walton,  on 
the  way  to  her  special  car,  in  all  her  glory, 
which  consisted  of  a  new  seal-brown  cos 
tume  with  tiger-skin  trimmings  and  a  retinue 
comprising  Gillespie  Gore,  Dr.  Henry  Mere 
dith,  the  specialist  on  nervous  diseases  (who, 
like  everybody  else,  had  evidently  taken  a 
day  off),  and  half  a  dozen  youths  who  looked 
young  enough  to  be  freshmen.  She  was 
frantically  waving  a  crimson  flag,  which  she 
shook  at  the  windows  of  our  car  as  she 
passed  with  the  spirit  of  a  belle  of  nineteen. 

"That  woman  is  simply  wonderful,"  mur 
mured  my  darling.  "  She  is  fifty-five  if  she 
is  a  day,  but  she  will  not  give  up." 

"Rah!  rah!  rah!  Harvard!"  I  ejaculated 
hysterically.  I  felt  that  I  was  getting  rat 
tled,  as  my  famous  son  calls  it. 

"  Look  here,  Cousin  Fred,"  said  Sam  Bangs 
at  my  shoulder.  "  Seen  the  morning  pa 
per  ?  Here  he  is  cabinet  size  and  a  full  fam 
ily  history  annexed.  It's  something  which 


A   PHILOSOPHER 


83 


his  great-grandchildren  will  be  proud  of. 
Where  the  dickens,  by  the  way,  is  Mrs. 
Sloane?  I've  been  looking  for  her  every- 


where  in  the  station.  She's  coming,  because 
she  telephoned  me  last  night  to  inquire  if 
I  could  squeeze  one  more  into  our  car.  We'll 
be  off  in  another  five  minutes." 

"  What  do  you  mean,  Sam  ?     What  is  it  ?  " 


84  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

asked  Josephine,  as  she  seized  and  held  to 
the  light  the  newspaper  which  he  was  ex 
tending. 

I  looked  over  her  shoulder  and  broke  into 
a  cold  perspiration  at  beholding  an  execrable 
three-quarters  length  cut  of  my  darling  son 
superscribed  by  his  name  in  holograph. 

"  It's  an  indecent  outrage,"  I  hissed. 

"It  isn't  like  him  in  the  least.  No  one 
would  ever  know  who  it  was.  It  makes  him 
look  like  a  prize-fighter,"  cried  Josephine. 

"  They've  no  right  to  print  his  picture  at 
all ;  it'll  do  the  boy  a  serious  injury  by  lead 
ing  him  to  believe  there  is  nothing  else  in 
the  world  worth  thinking  about  but  foot 
ball,"  I  asserted.  "  What  right  have  they  to 
doit?" 

"Pooh,  Cousin  Fred,"  said  Sam.  "It's 
nothing  but  ordinary  newspaper  enterprise. 
They  print  everybody's  portrait  nowadays, 
from  the  common  murderer  up.  Your  ox  is 
gored  this  time,  that's  all.  Cheer  up,  old 
man — Bah !  rah  !  rah !  Harvard !  " 

"  I  never  supposed  they  would  make  him 
look  like  that,  or  I  wouldn't  have  let  Fred 
have  the  photograph  to  give  them,"  said 
Josephine,  forlornly. 


A  PHILOSOPHER  85 

"  Do  you  mean  that  you  gave  it  to  them  ?  " 
I  asked,  in  horror. 

"  It  was  to  Fred  I  gave  it.  He  said  that 
his  picture  was  to  appear  with  the  others, 
and  that  he  must  have  a  photograph.  But 
they  have  made  him  much  the  worst  looking 
of  them  all.  It's  a  libel  on  the  dear  boy." 

I  was  saved  from  intemperate  language  by 
the  sudden  advent  of  Mrs.  Guy  Sloane,  in 
whose  custody  appeared  the  Rev.  Bradley 
Mason,  our  spiritual  adviser.  They  were 
both  breathless  with  haste,  occasioned,  as  we 
shortly  learned,  by  the  necessity  imposed  on 
our  beloved  pastor  of  marrying  a  couple  be 
fore  he  could  escape  from  his  fold. 

"If  I  had  ever  dreamed  that  you  would 
come,  Mr.  Mason,  I  should  have  sent  you  an 
invitation  myself,"  said  Josephine,  whose  de 
light,  as  I  perceived,  was  tinged  with  jeal 
ousy. 

"  I  planned  it  as  a  delicious  surprise,"  in 
terjected  Mrs.  Sloane.  "  I  knew  you  would 
be  only  too  glad  to  have  him  if  there  was 
room.  I  dare  say  you  thought  I  was  a  little 
mysterious  over  the  telephone  last  night,  Mr. 
Bangs,"  she  added  with  a  blithe  twist  of  her 
neck  in  Sam's  direction. 


OF  THB 


86  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

"I  am  a  thorough  believer  in  the  efficacy 
of  manly  sports  on  character,"  I  heard  Mr. 
Mason  remark  to  my  wife.  "  They  cannot  be 
too  much  encouraged  by  us  all." 

11  It  is  very  kind  of  you  to  say  so,"  said 
Josephine,  with  a  radiance  which  told  me 
plainly  that  her  qualms  concerning  the  whole 
proceeding  as  an  educational  factor  were  at 
least  temporarily  dispelled.  "  I  shall  tell 
little  Fred  that  you  were  with  us.  It  will 
gratify  him  very  much  to  know  that  you  saw 
the  game." 

"  It  must  be  a  proud  day  for  you  as  a  father 
and  a  college  man,"  he  continued,  with  a 
kindly  smile  in  my  direction. 

"  Eeally,  sir,  I  am  not  altogether  certain 
yet,"  I  answered,  a  trifle  doggedly.  "My 
judgment  is  in  a  state  of  suspension." 

He  obviously  mistook  my  philosophic  ut 
terance  for  fears  concerning  the  outcome  of 
the  game,  inasmuch  as  he  presently  sought 
to  soothe  me  by  a  speech  to  the  effect  that  a 
game  well  lost  was  a  victory  in  ethics,  which 
prompted  me  to  remark,  under  my  breath  : 

"  Provided  it  doesn't  cost  a  leg  or  a  rib  or 
two." 

"  Cost    nothing,"    cried    the   irrepressible 


A  PHILOSOPHER  87 

Sam,  whose  ear  caught  what  I  had  meant 
for  an  aside.  "  He'll  come  out  of  it  all  right, 
Cousin  Fred.  We're  bound  to  win  too.  Eah  ! 
rah  !  rah  !  Harv-a-rd  !  "  Thereupon  the  en 
gine  gave  a  puff  and  a  couple  of  snorts,  and 
we  were  off. 


WE  were  early  on  the  ground.  That  is  to 
say,  only  a  few  hundred  people  were 
in  their  places  when  we  arrived.  The  seating 
accommodations  were  for  thousands.  Have 
you  ever  seen  an  intercollegiate  foot -ball 
field  ?  If  not,  picture  to  yourself  a  long,  level, 
rectangular  arena  about  a  hundred  yards  long 
and  fifty  yards  wide  marked  out  with  white 
lines  at  certain  regular  intervals.  At  either 
end  stands  a  crossbar  supported  by  two  posts. 
These  are  the  respective  goals.  All  along 
the  field  on  either  side  runs  a  tall  tier  of 
seats  similar  to  those  at  a  hippodrome, 
and  there  are  tiers  of  seats  also  opposite  the 
ends ;  but  the  best  seats  are  likely  to  be  those 
on  either  side  in  proximity  to  the  middle  of 
the  field. 

Sam  Bangs  led  the  way  with  the  confident 
tread  of  a  drum-major  down  the  Harvard 
side — for  the  custom  is  to  apportion  the  seats 


OPINIONS  OF  A  PHILOSOPHER         89 

on  one  of  the  long  sides  of  the  field  among 
the  friends  of  one  college,  and  those  on  the 
other  correspondingly — until  he  reached  a 
desirable  location.  Then  we  established  our 
selves  according  to  his  directions  and  waited. 
It  was  rather  a  long  wait — nearly  two  hours — 
during  which  I  had  ample  leisure  to  phi 
losophize  to  the  top  of  my  bent.  We  had  to 
console  us  Sam's  assurance  that  it  was  neces 
sary  to  take  time  by  the  forelock  to  this 
radical  extent  in  order  to  secure  satisfactory 
places.  For  the  next  two  hours  a  steady 
stream  of  people  poured  along  the  two  sides 
of  the  field  until  they  became  great  walls  of 
crimson  and  blue  humanity.  Flags  waved, 
badges  fluttered,  the  human  voice  worked  it 
self  hoarse  in  every  form  of  encouraging  out 
cry  from  the  full-chested  song  to  the  indis 
criminate  cat-call.  In  front  of  each  section 
of  seats  stood  a  separate  youth,  who  at  very 
short  intervals,  and  at  the  slightest  provoca 
tion,  invoked  cheers  upon  cheers  for  every 
thing  and  everybody,  from  the  captain  of  the 
team  to  the  college  costermonger.  An  hour 
before  the  game  began  the  benches  were 
crowded,  and  I  seemed  to  have  recognized 
in  the  passing  throng  every  person  of  con- 


90  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

sideration  among  my  acquaintance.  Mrs. 
Willoughby  Walton  and  her  party  were 
among  the  last  to  arrive.  I  was  curious  to 
see  where  they  would  bestow  themselves, 
seeing  that  we  were  all  packed  tight  as  her 
rings,  and  there  was  only  here  and  there  an 
occasional  chance  for  another  mortal  to 
squeeze  in,  and  that  generally  at  the  cost  of 
clambering  over  the  heads  of  two  or  three 
hundred  people.  As  Josephine  said  to  me 
later,  I  might  have  known  that  Mrs.  Walton 
would  not  put  herself  in  any  such  plight.  I 
was  just  wondering  what  on  earth  her  elegant 
procession,  which  had  halted  in  front  of  the 
section  next  to  ours,  was  going  to  do,  when 
of  a  sudden  the  occupants  of  the  two  best 
rows  of  seats  trooped  out  in  orderly  file  and 
relinquished  their  places  to  the  fashionable 
party.  Sam,  after  a  moment's  dazed  si 
lence,  which  must  have  been  gall  to  him,  for 
he  does  not  like  to  be  imposed  upon  in  such 
matters,  furnished  us  with  the  solution  of 
this  act  of  legerdemain. 

"  They  were  mill  hands  subsidized  to  come 
early  and  hold  the  seats  until  Mrs.  Willough 
by  arrived. 

Another  hour  of  anticipation,  and  then  at 


A  PHILOSOPHER  91 

last  a  roar;  a  roar  which  runs  like  a  fire 
down  our  side  of  the  field,  waking  tired 
lungs  to  new  enthusiasm  and  calling  into  ac 
tion  every  crimson  flag  and  rag.  Only  the 
wearers  of  the  blue  are  quiet ;  their  benches 
remain  coldly  silent.  The  Harvard  eleven 
have  arrived  on  a  tally-ho,  and  in  a  few 
minutes  more  are  disporting  themselves  like 
a  band  of  prairie  dogs  over  the  campus.  The 
uproar  is  deafening,  but  they  seem  to  pay  no 
attention  to  it.  They  strip  off  their  crim 
son  jerseys  and  concentrate  their  energies 
on  bunting  and  punting  a  leather  foot-ball 
about  the  field.  They  wear  earth-colored 
canvas  jackets  and  earth-colored  knicker 
bockers  ending  in  crimson  stockings,  and  I 
say  to  myself  that  they  are  the  most  unpleas 
ant-looking  band  of  ruffians  I  have  ever  be 
held.  Nor  are  my  fond  paternal  eyes  able  to 
make  a  reservation  in  little  Fred's  favor  on 
this  point.  I  have  considerable  difficulty, 
indeed,  in  distinguishing  him  from  his  mates, 
though  Josephine  declares  that  she  singled 
him  out  the  moment  he  appeared  on  the 
scene.  He  suggests  to  me  a  compromise  be 
tween  a  convict  and  a  hod-carrier.  Neverthe 
less,  my  eyes  begin  to  water  as  I  follow  his 


92  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

every  movement,  and  my  pulses  throb  eagerly. 
At  the  same  time  I  am  impelled  to  link  my 
arm  affectionately  in  my  son  David's,  next  to 
whom  I  am  sitting.  I  cannot  help  wonder 
ing  what  he,  dear  boy,  is  thinking  of  it  all. 
He  is  perfectly  healthy,  but  he  is  slight,  and 
will  never  be  an  athlete.  His  tastes  do  not 
run  in  that  direction.  He  graduated  at 
school  last  summer  next  to  the  head  of  his 
class,  and  it  was  no  class  of  two,  but  of 
twenty  times  that  number.  We  were  very 
proud  of  it,  Josephine  and  I.  We  went  to 
the  exhibition  and  saw  him  receive  a  number 
of  prizes.  It  was  a  pleasant  occasion,  but 
how  trifling  and  insignificant  were  the  plau 
dits  he  received  compared  with  the  uproari 
ous  ovation  accorded  a  successful  half-back. 
I  feel  almost  indignant,  even  in  the  midst 
of  my  excitement  over  little  Fred,  and  would 
fain  throw  my  arms  round  his  brother's 
neck  and  whisper  that  he  must  not  take  the 
matter  to  heart,  and  that  the  whole  business 
is  terribly  unjust. 

Now  comes  another  uproar,  and  this  time 
from  the  opposite  side  of  the  field.  The 
Yale  eleven  have  arrived  and  are  stripping 
off  their  jerseys.  They  career  over  the  arena 


A   PHILOSOPHER  03 

in  dirt  color  and  dark  blue,  while  the  dark 
blue  benches  surge  tumultuously.  There  is 
no  more  delay.  The  umpire  calls  the  game, 
and  the  two  sides  line  up  for  action.  I  feel 
Josephine,  who  is  on  my  other  side,  clutch  my 
arm  and  sigh.  There  is  only  one  object  for 
her  on  the  field,  as  I  well  know.  She  has 
been  trying  to  learn  the  rules  from  Sam  for 
the  last  half  hour  (she  doubts  my  knowledge 
on  such  subjects  nowadays),  and  I  can  see 
that  she  is  seeking  in  vain  to  concentrate 
her  mind  on  her  new-found  information  and 
to  shut  out  the  vision  of  little  Fred  being 
borne  off  the  field  on  a  litter.  I  confess  that 
Horace  Plympton's  letter  recurs  to  me  for  a 
moment,  but  I  shake  myself  and  utter  an  in 
ward  "  Pooh  !  "  and  haughtily  determine  to 
view  the  contest  dispassionately  and  from 
the  standpoint  of  a  third  person  and  a  phi 
losopher. 

Harvard  has  won  the  toss  and  is  to  have 
the  ball.  In  my  day  we  had  to  kick  it ;  now 
it  is  manipulated  with  the  hands,  and  not  for 
ward,  but  backward.  The  players  form  a 
phalanx,  and  one  of  their  number  snaps,  as  it 
is  called,  the  ball  between  his  legs  to  some 
one  behind  him,  who  in  turn  passes  it  to  an- 


94  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

other,  who  is  expected  to  make  a  forward 
dash  with  it.  Before  I  can  quite  realize  what 
is  being  done  the  Harvard  men  are  speeding 
toward  the  Yale  goal  in  a  V-shaped  body. 
Little  Fred  has  the  ball.  Or  rather  he  had  it. 
All  I  can  see  now  is  an  indiscriminate  mass 
of  bodies,  legs,  and  arms.  A  great  pile  of  men 
are  struggling  on  the  ground,  and  I  have  rea 
son  to  believe  that  little  Fred  is  at  the  bottom 
of  the  pile. 

"  A  scrimmage,"  says  Sam,  looking  round 
at  Josephine. 

"Oh,  yes,"  she  answers,  with  apparent 
calm,  but  I  can  feel  her  tremble. 

"  This  is  nothing ;  it's  like  this  most  of 
the  time,"  says  Sam.  "  You  see  he's  all  right, 
and- 

A  yell  cuts  him  short. 

"  Good  enough !  Harvard  still  has  the  ball," 
he  continues,  at  its  close. 

"Can  you  see  him?  "  whispers  Josephine, 
in  my  ear. 

"  He's  all  right,"  I  murmur,  assuringly. 

See  him  !  I  can  see  him  distinctly.  He  has 
lost  his  cap  already ;  his  hair  is  in  wild  con 
fusion  ;  he  is  covered  with  dirt  from  head  to 
foot;  he  limps  a  little.  But  Harvard  still 


A  PHILOSOPHER  95 

has  the  ball.  And  Sam  says  it  is  nothing 
and  like  this  most  of  the  time.  Sam  must 
know. 

"Kah!    rah!  rah!   Harvard!"  I  cry  with 
the  rest  unflinchingly. 


There  is  a  second  yell,  this  time  from  our 
enemies.  Harvard  has  lost  the  ball  and 
Yale  has  it.  And  now  before  my  bewildered 
eyes  scrimmage  follows  scrimmage  with 
fierce  iteration,  and  one  pile  of  bodies,  arms, 


96  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

and  legs  succeeds  another.  The  player, 
fortunate  enough  to  carry  or  force  the  ball 
a  yard  or  more  toward  the  rival  goal  by  a 
frantic  rush  before  he  is  overwhelmed  and 
squashed,  reaps  a  whirlwind  of  applause 
from  the  absorbed  multitude.  Every  inch 
of  ground  is  disputed.  Once  in  a  long  in 
terval  when  the  ball  gets  dangerously  near  a 
goal,  someone  on  the  imperilled  side  kicks  it 
half  the  length  of  the  field,  and  the  scrim 
mages  are  renewed.  But  it  is  rarely  kicked  at 
all  except  at  such  junctures.  Foot-ball !  I 
say  to  myself  that  it  is  a  gladiatorial  combat 
with  an  occasional  punt  thrown  in  by  way  of 
identification.  But  every  one  around  me  is 
declaring  that  the  play  of  both  sides  is  mag 
nificent,  that  the  team  work  is  perfection,  and 
the  head  qualities  displayed  unique  in  the 
annals  of  the  game.  Sam  tells  me  again  and 
again  that  Fred  is  doing  sheer  wonders  and 
is  the  backbone  of  the  Harvard  side,  and  I 
wonder  how  he  can  distinguish  so  easily 
which  is  Fred  and  whether  he  has  any  back 
bone  left.  I  can  no  longer  make  out  much 
of  anything  except  that  one  ruffian  closely  re 
sembles  every  other  ruffian,  and  that  one  poor 
boy  is  lying  on  the  ground  perfectly  still,  as 


A  PHILOSOPHER  97 

though  he  were  dead.  There  is  just  a  little 
lull  on  the  benches.  People  are  interested. 

"  Who  is  it  ?  "  gasps  Josephine.  "  Is  it  he, 
dear  ?  " 

"  '  Butchered  to  make  a  Eoman  holiday,'" 
I  mutter  between  my  teeth,  with  my  heart  in 
my  mouth. 

They  are  pulling  and  rubbing  the  victim, 
and  a  doctor,  retained  for  such  emergencies, 
is  bending  over  him.  After  a  few  moments 
more  he  rises  slowly,  looks  round  him  in  a 
dazed  fashion,  and  resumes  his  position  with 
a  painful  limp,  to  a  round  of  applause. 

"  It  isn't  Fred,"  says  Josephine. 

"  But  he  has  a  mother,  though,"  I  answer. 

"He'll  be  all  right  in  a  minute  or  two," 
says  Sam.  "  They  stamped  the  wind  out  of 
him,  that's  all." 

To  have  the  wind  stamped  out  of  one  is  a 
mere  bagatelle,  of  course,  and  I  have  forgot 
ten  it  in  another  moment  under  the  spur  of 
excitement.  A  Harvard  player  has  the  ball, 
and  no  one  seems  to  be  able  to  stop  him.  He 
throws  off  this  antagonist  and  dodges  two 
others,  and  races  down  the  field  like  a  deer, 
while  the  wearers  of  the  crimson  scream  his 
name  with  transport  and  flourish  their  ban- 
7 


98  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

ners  like  madmen.  It  is  Fred,  it  is  Fred,  it 
is  Fred !  I  know  his  figure  now.  He  has  the 
ball  and  is  flying  like  the  wind  with  two  great 
brutes  at  his  heels.  Will  they  catch  him? 
Will  they  kill  him?  They  are  gaining  on 
him. 

"  Bun — run — run,"  I  shout,  in  spite  of  my 
self,  while  all  the  people  on  our  benches  rise 
in  their  excitement,  and  Josephine  covers  her 
eyes  with  her  hands,  unwilling  to  look.  On, 
on  my  boy  runs,  until  at  last  he  falls  with  his 
two  pursuers  on  top  of  him  full  across  the 
Yale  line. 

"A  touch-down,  a  touch-down  !  "  bursts  out 
Sam,  as  he  grasps  my  hand  in  his  wild  enthu 
siasm.  I  do  not  know  exactly  what  has  oc 
curred  except  that  there  is  pandemonium  on 
the  Harvard  side  of  the  field  unequalled  as 
yet  by  anything  that  has  happened,  and  a 
deathly  tranquillity  along  the  benches  oppo 
site.  After  making  sure  that  Fred  is  still 
alive,  I  listen  to  the  explanation  that  a  touch 
down  counts  a  certain  number  of  points,  and 
gives  the  right  to  the  side  which  wins  it  to 
try  to  kick  a  goal.  This  attempt  is  presently 
made.  A  player  lies  on  the  ground  and  holds 
the  ball  between  his  hands  for  another  to  kick. 


A  PHILOSOPHER  99 

Presto  !  the  ball  sails  through  the  air ;  for  an 
instant  there  is  agonized  suspense,  and  then  a 
shout  from  Yale.  It  has  failed  to  go  between 
the  goal-posts,  and  consequently  has  missed. 

"Four  to  nothing,  anyway,"  says  Sam. 
"  That  was  a  magnificent  run.  Kah  !  rah ! 
rah!  Harvard." 

Josephine  is  wiping  her  eyes  and  every 
body  in  our  neighborhood  is  nudging  each 
other  in  consequence  of  the  news  that  we  are 
blood  relations  of  the  hero  of  the  hour.  Mrs. 
Sloane  nods  her  congratulations,  and  Mrs. 
Walton  signals  with  a  crimson  flag  from  the 
adjoining  section,  and  our  beloved  pastor 
smiles  at  Josephine  in  his  delightful  way. 

And  what  follows  ?  What  follows  is  fierce 
and  harrowing.  What  follows  continues  to 
hold  that  great  audience  spellbound  to  the 
close.  The  score  is  four  to  nothing  in  favor 
of  Harvard ;  but  the  Yale  team,  smarting  from 
defeat,  throw  themselves  into  the  ever-recur 
ring  scrimmages  with  set  faces.  It  is  not  my 
purpose  to  follow  the  contest  in  detail.  I  am 
writing  as  a  father  and  philosopher,  and  not 
as  a  chronicler  of  athletic  struggles.  Suffice 
it  to  state  that  the  scrimmages  grow  still  more 
savage  and  earnest,  and  that  a  player  from 


100  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

each  side  is  obliged  by  the  referee  to  retire 
from  the  field,  because  he  has  slugged  an  op 
ponent.  Suffice  it  to  state  that  presently  a 
rusher  is  obliged  to  retire  from  the  field  by 
reason  of  a  sprained  ankle.  It  is  not  little 
Fred,  but  might  it  not  have  been  ?  Suffice  it 
to  state  that  by  the  end  of  the  first  three- 
quarters  of  an  hour— let  the  uninitiated  here 
learn  that  a  match  is  divided  into  two  bouts 
of  that  length  each,  with  an  interim  of  fifteen 
minutes — the  Yale  team,  by  the  most  magnifi 
cent  work  (according  to  Sam  Bangs),  has 
forced  the  ball  steadily  and  surely  toward 
the  Harvard  line,  and  won  a  touch-down  and 
kicked  a  goal,  leaving  the  score  for  the  first 
half  six  to  four  in  favor  of  the  blue.  Just 
after  the  ball  has  flown  between  the  goal 
posts,  amid  thunders  of  triumph  from  our 
enemies,  the  umpire  calls  time. 

Suffice  it  to  state  that  the  second  three- 
quarters  of  an  hour  is  largely  a  repetition  of 
the  first — short,  furious  rushes,  everlasting 
scrimmages,  and  here  and  there  a  punt.  The 
ruffians  look  still  more  ruffianly  from  frequent 
contact  with  mother-earth  and  the  clutches  of 
one  another.  Ominous  gloom  and  depress 
ing  silence  take  possession  of  the  friends  of 


A  PHILOSOPHER  101 

Harvard ;  their  very  cheers  are  anxious,  and 
with  good  reason.  Yale  has  kicked  another 
goal  from  the  field  in  the  first  twenty  minutes 
and  the  crimson  is  being  gradually  and  stead 
ily  outplayed.  My  heart  bleeds  for  my  son ; 
he  will  be  so  disappointed  if  he  loses.  And 
I  shall  be  so  happy  when  the  game  is  over 
and  I  am  sure  that  he  is  not  maimed  for  life. 
He  is  doing  wonders  still,  dear  boy.  Twice  I 
see  him  lying  flat  and  motionless  on  the  field 
with  the  wind  stamped  out  of  him,  to  borrow 
Sam's  euphemism,  while  his  mother  wriggles 
in  her  seat  in  the  throes  of  uncertainty  and 
is  hardly  to  be  restrained  from  going  to  him. 
Twice,  after  the  doctor  has  fumbled  over  him 
and  water  has  been  dashed  in  his  face,  I  see 
Sam's  diagnosis  vindicated,  and  my  half-back 
rise  to  his  feet,  and  the  game  go  on  as  though 
nothing  had  happened.  Such  episodes  are  a 
matter  of  course,  and  not  to  be  taken  too  seri 
ously.  A  broken  rib  or  two  is  not  a  vital  mat 
ter,  and  only  one  rib  is  broken  in  the  second 
three-quarters  of  an  hour.  Even  then  the 
poor  victim  does  not  have  to  be  carried  off 
on  a  litter,  for  he  is  able  to  walk  with  the 
help  of  the  doctor  and  a  friend.  It  is  not 
Fred :  Fred  has  merely  had  the  wind  stamped 


102  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

out  of  him  a  few  times  and  is  still  doing  won 
ders.  "Will  it  never  end  ?  I  look  at  my  watch 
feverishly.  The  ball  is  close  by  the  Harvard 
goal,  and  Yale  holds  it  there  with  the  tenacity 
of  a  bull-dog.  Bull-dog?  They  are  all  bull 
dogs — twenty- two  bull-dogs  cheek  by  jowl. 

"Isn't  it  magnificent?"  murmurs  Sam, 
looking  back  at  me.  "  They  have  outplayed 
us  fairly  and  squarely.  Only  five  minutes 
left,  and  the  score  eleven  to  four  against  us. 
We're  not  in  it.  That  run  of  Fred's  was  the 
most  brilliant  play  of  the  day,  though." 

"  The  poor  darling  will  be  broken-hearted," 
whispers  Josephine. 

"  That  is  better  than  being  broken-headed 
—better  for  us,"  I  whisper  in  reply. 

"  I  do  hope  he  hasn't  lost  any  of  his  front 
teeth.  His  mouth  was  bleeding  the  last  time 
he  fell,"  continues  his  mother. 

"False  ones  nowadays  are  very  satisfac 
tory,"  I  answer. 

Ten  minutes  later  we  are  moving  along 
with  the  rest  of  our  acquaintance  on  the  way 
to  the  railroad.  Yale  has  won,  eleven  to  four, 
and  the  bruised  and  battered  players  of  both 
teams  have  departed  on  their  respective  tally- 
hos,  and  Josephine  and  I  are  free  to  receive 


A  PHILOSOPHER  103 

the  congratulations  of  our  friends  with  a  calm 
mind,  though  my  darling  is  still  haunted  by 
the  fear  that  our  illustrious  son  has  left  a 
tooth  or  two  on  the  arena.  Fred's  run  is  011 
everybody's  lips,  and  we  as  the  authors  of  his 
being  are  made  much  of.  Mr.  Leggatt,  the 
banker,  works  his  way  up  to  me  through  the 
crowd  at  great  personal  distress,  for  he  is  a  fat 
man,  in  order  to  say,  with  an  enthusiastic  shake 
of  the  hand : 

"Great  boy  that  of  yours  ;  splendid  grit ;  I 
must  have  him  when  he  graduates." 

I  sputter  many  thanks  confusedly.  Here 
is  a  strange  development  truly.  I  had  been 
hoping,  as  you  may  remember,  to  be  able  to 
go  to  Mr.  Leggatt,  at  Fred's  graduation,  and 
to  ask  for  a  clerkship  for  my  boy  on  the  plea 
of  his  steadiness  and  sterling  common  sense ; 
and  now  the  solicitation  has  come  to  me  on 
the  score  of  his  grit  as  a  foot-ball  kicker.  The 
world  seems  just  a  little  topsy-turvy,  and  I  am 
not  quite  sure  whether  to  laugh  or  to  cry. 

We  got  home  at  last  somehow  ;  and  here  I 
am  sitting  in  my  library  trying  to  collect  my 
faculties  and  to  appreciate  the  honor  which 
has  been  thrust  upon  me — the  honor  of  being 
the  father  of  a  famous  half-back.  To  tell 


104  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

the  truth,  it  sticks  in  my  crop  just  a  little  and 
does  not  relish  to  the  extent  which  would 
seem  appropriate.  Indeed  I  am  not  alto 
gether  sure  whether  I  can  see  a  distinction 
between  being  the  father  of  a  famous  half 
back  and  the  father  of  a  famous  toreador  or 
famous  prize-fighter.  I  know  that  Leggatt 
and  one  or  two  others,  to  whom  I  ventured 
to  expose  my  qualms  on  the  way  home,  de 
clared  them  preposterous,  and  that  the  game 
was  magnificent  discipline  for  both  mind  and 
body.  Come  .to  that,  the  vicissitudes  of  a 
matador  are  magnificent  discipline  for  both 
mind  and  body.  So  are  those  of  a  gladiator. 
Yet  I  have  my  doubts  whether  Leggatt  would 
like  to  be  the  father  of  either.  Nevertheless, 
although  he  is  a  citizen  of  far  greater  consid 
eration  than  I,  he  gave  me  to  understand 
that  he  would  be  proud  to  be  described  in 
the  newspapers  as  the  father  of  a  famous 
half-back,  and  to  see  a  son  of  his  handed 
down  to  posterity  in  the  public  prints  as  a 
prize  animal  of  this  description. 

I  fear  there  must  be  a  screw  loose  some 
where  in  my  make-up  as  a  father  and  a  phi 
losopher.  You  remember  the  case  of  the 
burglars  ?  It  did  not  seem  to  me  worth 


A  PHILOSOPHER  105 

while  to  go  downstairs  and  expose  myself  to 
be  shot.  Yet  Josephine  felt  differently  on 
the  point. 

Moreover,  I  have  never  been  able  to  un 
derstand  why  it  is  courageous  or  meritorious 
to  be  an  amateur  Alpine  climber,  whereas 
many  are  fain  to  admire  the  beauties  of  nat 
ure  from  an  elevation  where  a  false  step  or  a 
rotten  rope  would  be  passports  to  destruc 
tion.  Then,  again,  people  who  cross  the 
ocean  in  dories,  or  fast  for  indefinite  periods, 
have  never  aroused  my  enthusiasm.  On  the 
contrary,  I  regard  them  as  being  in  the  same 
general  category  with  lunatics.  I  have  never 
seen  a  bull-fight,  and  I  have  sometimes  fancied 
that  I  should  be  weak  enough  to  attend  one 
out  of  curiosity  if  I  happened  to  be  in  Spain 
at  the  right  time ;  but  I  am  sure  that  I  should 
never  care  to  go  twice.  And  yet  I  am  ex 
pected  to  feel  proud  and  grateful  because 
my  eldest  son  has  made  prowess  at  foot 
ball  the  aim  and  object  of  his  college  course. 
I  am  trying  to,  trying  hard,  but  I  fear  it  is 
no  use.  I  should  like  to  understand  why  it 
is  glorious  or  sensible  for  an  honest,  strap 
ping  fellow,  who  has  been  sent  to  college 
by  dint  of  some  economy  on  the  part  of 


106  THE  OPINIONS   OF 

his  parents,  to  devote  his  entire  energies  to  a 
course  of  training  which  will  entitle  him  to 
run  the  risk  of  having  his  legs,  arms,  or  ribs 
broken  in  fighting  for  a  leather  ball  before 
several  thousand  people.  Of  one  thing  I 
am  certain  already,  even  at  the  risk  of  seem 
ing  to  agree  with  Horace  Plympton,  which 
is,  that  if  I  had  another  son  with  like  pro 
clivities,  I  should  put  a  stop  to  it. 

But  then,  as  Josephine  reminds  me,  the 
fact  that  our  David  does  not  care  a  picayune 
for  anything  of  the  sort,  robs  my  resolve  of 
much  of  its  solemnity.  I  might,  to  be  sure, 
interpose  a  mandate  at  this  late  hour  and 
cut  off  little  Fred  in  the  flower  of  his  renown, 
and  (to  quote  my  wife  once  more)  break  his 
heart ;  which  might  be  a  more  serious  con 
sequence  than  a  broken  leg.  No,  I  am  in 
clined  to  think,  on  the  whole,  now  that  the 
mischief  is  done,  we  may  as  well  let  him 
folloAV  the  path  he  has  chosen,  especially  as 
Leggatt  has  his  eye  on  him  and  has  prom 
ised  to  give  him  a  start.  We  must  live  in 
the  hope  that  the  breath  will  not  be  trampled 
out  of  him  once  too  often  before  that  desira 
ble  result  is  brought  to  pass.  Moreover,  if 
he  is  borne  off  the  field  on  a  litter,  it  will  net 


A  PHILOSOPHER  107 

be  in  the  presence  of  his  parents.  We  have 
seen  one  gladiatorial  combat,  and  our  thirst 
for  gore  is  sated. 

Henceforth  we  shall  be  content  to  cower 
by  the  hearth  on  the  days  when  the  great 
matches  are  played  and  fancy  each  ring  at 
the  door-bell  the  summons  of  a  telegraphic 
emissary.  And  by  way  of  celebrating  our 
first  escape  from  bereavement,  I  am  going 
to  present  our  David  with  a  gold  watch  for 
the  excellent  showing  he  made  in  his  stud 
ies  last  summer. 


VI 


LITTLE  FEED  has  been  graduated  from 
college  without  the  loss  of  his  front 
teeth  or  an  eye.  He  has  a  few  scars,  which 
will  not  permanently  disfigure  him ;  and 
though  he  halts  slightly  as  the  result  of  a 
strained  tendon  in  the  calf  of  one  of  his  legs, 
Dr.  Meredith  assures  us  that  this  is  chiefly  a 
nervous  symptom,  which  will  pass  off  pres 
ently.  He  says  Fred  is  a  little  run  down, 
and  he  advises  raw  eggs  and  milk  between 
meals.  I  assume  that  the  doctor  is  right,  but 
it  seems  strange  to  me  that  a  boy  should  get 
run  down  through  foot-ball  exercise.  How 
ever,  he  is  to  go  abroad  for  six  months,  which 
ought  to  mend  matters,  and  then  buckle  down 
to  work  with  Leggatt  &  Paine.  He  is  an 
honest,  manly  fellow,  who  will  make  friends, 
and,  provided  he  does  not  break  his  neck  in 
following  the  hounds  or  playing  polo,  is  likely 
to  do  well. 


OPINIONS  OF  A  PHILOSOPHER       109 

David,  my  second  boy,  is  a  born  chemist 
and  a  genuine  book-lover  besides.  He  is  at 
the  School  of  Science,  to  which  we  decided  to 
send  him,  instead  of  to  college,  in  view  of  the 
fact  that  his  proclivities  were  in  the  line  of 
gases  and  forces  rather  than  Greek  roots  and 
history.  He  is  doing  famously,  I  believe; 
and  though  I  am  a  profound  ignoramus  on 
such  matters,  I  should  not  be  at  all  surprised 
if  he  were  to  make  a  name  for  himself  early 
in  life  by  some  valuable  discovery  in  the 
electrical  or  bacillic  line.  He  has  lately  made 
a  test  of  all  the  wall-papers  and  upholstery 
in  our  house,  and  discovered,  to  our  dismay, 
that  there  is  arsenic  in  pretty  nearly  every 
thing,  including  some  of  the  bed  -  sheets, 
which,  strange  to  state,  in  spite  of  their  inno 
cent  appearance,  proved  to  be  particularly 
full  of  the  deleterious  poison.  We  have  had 
to  overhaul  everything  in  consequence,  and 
Josephine  firmly  believes  that  Fred's  nervous 
halt  is  due  to  the  presence  of  arsenic  in  his 
system,  for  the  bed-sheets  in  his  college  room 
belonged  to  the  condemned  batch.  Seeing 
that  the  rest  of  us  are  perfectly  well,  I  se 
cretly  suspect  that  late  hours  and  tobacco 
are  more  to  blame  than  arsenic  for  my  athlet- 


110  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

ic  son's  condition ;  but  in  the  teeth  of  scien 
tific  warning  I  have  not  ventured  to  run  the 
risk  of  continued  exposure,  and  have  con 
sented  to  the  purchase  of  new  carpets,  cur 
tains,  window-shades,  and  other  household 
apparel. 

I  am  much  more  concerned,  to  tell  the 
truth,  lest  some  of  the  germs  which  David  is 
cosseting  in  his  bed-chamber  may  get  loose 
and  ravage  the  community.  He  has  a  bacil 
lus  farm,  where,  according  to  his  account,  the 
cholera  germ,  the  germ  of  tuberculosis,  the 
typhoid-fever  germ,  and  the  diphtheria  germ 
are  growing  side  by  side  for  his  private  edifi 
cation.  As  Josephine  says,  there  are  certain 
risks  which  a  brave  man  has  to  take  ;  but  I 
am  not  sure  that  this  is  one  of  them.  Even 
my  darling  is  a  little  anxious  on  the  score  of 
contamination,  in  spite  of  her  scientific  son's 
assurance  that  his  pets  are  thoroughly  harm 
less. 

I  do  not  really  know  whether  Josephine  is 
prouder  of  Fred  or  of  David.  Certainly  her 
mind  is  comparatively  at  rest  regarding  them 
both,  notwithstanding  my  second  boy  is  not 
quite  like  other  people.  I  do  not  mean  that  he 
is  boorish  or  eccentric,  merely  that  he  is  book- 


A  PHILOSOPHER  111 

isli  and  self-absorbed.  He  takes  no  interest 
in  his  personal  appearance,  and  lie  avoids 
every  young  woman  except  his  sisters.  Fred 
is  dandified,  keenly  fond  of  the  social  inter 
ests  of  the  day  and  of  the  other  sex.  I  fore 
see  that  he  bids  fair  to  be  a  leading  man  of 
affairs,  and  to  figure  prominently  in  society, 
and  later  on  to  become  a  member  of  Congress 
or  to  be  sent  abroad  as  a  foreign  minister. 
But  he  is  just  like  everybody  else,  so  to 
speak  ;  or  rather  he  accepts  the  world  as 
he  finds  it  and  accommodates  himself  to 
it.  Now,  David  is  cast  in  a  different  mould. 
He  is  essentially  unconventional.  And  yet, 
though  his  mother  sighs  now  and  then  over 
his  repugnance  to  young  ladies,  and  tries  to 
badger  him  into  looking  a  little  more  spruce, 
I  can  perceive  that  she  is  thoroughly  proud 
of  his  originality  and  independence,  and  be 
lieves  that  he  is  even  more  likely  than  his 
conventional  brother  to  distinguish  himself 
and  immortalize  the  family  name.  Josephine 
used  to  say,  when  the  boys  were  little,  that  she 
hoped  one  of  them  would  be  a  clergyman, 
and  I  know  that  she  has  more  sympathy  than 
I — and  I  have  considerable — with'  a  scheme 
of  life  which  entertains  starving  in  a  garret 


112  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

for  the  sake  of  art  or  science  as  a  meritorious 
contingency.  She  has  held  up  before  her 
boys,  since  their  earliest  childhood,  the  perils 
of  idle  and  purely  worldly  living,  and  spurred 
them  to  make  the  most  of  themselves. 

Curiously  enough,  our  two  girls  are  just  as 
dissimilar  to  each  other  as  Fred  and  David. 
Josie,  the  elder — who,  as  I  have  already  speci 
fied,  is,  according  to  the  world  at  large,  the 
image  of  her  mother  at  the  same  age — will  not 
be  troublesome  in  the  least  degree,  so  my 
wife  tells  me.  She  has  taken  to  society  as  a 
duck  takes  to  water.  She  has  a  natural  apti 
tude  for  pleasing  and  being  pleased;  conse 
quently  she  has  plenty  of  partners.  My  wife 
says  that,  considering  the  dear  child  was  all 
legs  and  arms  three  years  ago,  we  have  every 
reason  to  congratulate  ourselves  that  she  has 
turned  out  such  a  pleasant-looking  girl,  and 
that  her  red  hair  is  decidedly  ornamental.  I 
call  her  handsome,  but  Josephine  declares 
that  I  make  myself  ridiculous  by  the  asser 
tion,  and  that  it  is  very  rare  that  a  girl  who 
has  not  really  a  ray  of  beauty  to  commend 
her  becomes  such  a  thorough-going  favorite 
in  her  first  season. 

"  She  constantly  reminds  me  of  you,  and 


A  PHILOSOPHER  113 

that  is  enough  for  me,"  I  remarked,  tenderly, 
on  one  occasion. 

"You  make  me  boil  when  you  say  that, 
Fred.  I  was  really  a  very  pretty  girl,  if  I  do 
say  it ;  whereas  Josie,  the  sweet  soul,  only  just 
escapes  being  homely.  Her  smile  and  her 
hair  save  her,  so  that  she  passes.  But  it  is  a 
libel  to  compare  her  with  what  I  was  at  her 
age.  We  must  look  facts  in  the  face,  dear." 

"  People  tell  me  every  day  that  she  is  the 
living  image  of  her  mother,"  I  answered 
humbly. 

"  People  are  idiots.  They  know  you  will 
believe  it  because  you  are  a  man.  They  don't 
dare  tell  me  anything  of  the  sort.  No,  Fred, 
we  must  build  all  our  hopes  of  beauty  on 
Winona." 

"  Ah  ! "  I  remarked,  with  an  intonation  of 
pride  ;  "  even  her  mother  will  not  be  able  to 
pick  a  flaw  in  her." 

"  She  is  a  very  handsome  girl,  but " 

Josephine  stopped  short,  and  I  could  see 
that  her  lip  was  trembling  with  emotion. 

"  There  is  no  <  but,'  "  I  protested.  "  What 
ever  Josie  may  be,  Winona  is  a  raving 
beauty." 

"  Oh,  yes,  Fred,  I  am  perfectly  satisfied 
8 


11 4:       OPINIONS  OF  A  PHILOSOPHER 

with  her  looks.  That  makes  it  all  the  harder. 
I'm  on  tenterhooks  lest  she  is  going  to  be 
queer." 

"  Queer  ?  "  I  inquired,  with  agitation,  dread 
ing  some  disclosure  of  mental  derangement. 

"Odd — not  like  other  people.  It  would 
break  my  heart,  Fred.  She  is  seventeen,  and 
she  doesn't  take  the  slightest  interest  in  com 
ing  out.  You  remember  I  had  her  appear  for 
an  hour  at  Josie's  party,  and  that  she  was 
surrounded  by  young  men  from  the  moment 
she  entered  the  room  until  I  sent  her  to  bed  ? 
Most  girls  would  have  been  in  danger  of  hav 
ing  their  heads  turned.  Winona  was  bored." 

"  She  will  get  over  that  as  soon  as  she  is  a 
year  older.  She  is  shy." 

"  She  is  not  shy.  If  she  were  shy  I  should 
think  nothing  of  it.  She  declares  that  soci 
ety  is  all  nonsense,  and  that  she  wishes  never 
to  come  out  at  all." 

"What  an  egregiously  sensible  girl,"  I 
murmured. 

"  I  hope  you  will  not  encourage  her,  Fred," 
pleaded  my  darling.  "I  have  counted  so 
much  on  her.  If  Josie  had  taken  it  into  her 
head  to  be  queer,  I  shouldn't  have  said  a 
word,  for  I  think  myself  that  it  is  often  for  a 


116  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

plain  girl's  happiness  not  to  have  to  undergo 
the  ordeal  of  being  neglected ;  but  in  the  case 
of  a  beauty  like  Winona  it  would  be  such  a 
waste !  There  is  not  a  girl  of  her  age  who 
compares  with  her  in  beauty." 

"What  is  it  she  wishes  to  do?"  I  asked, 
with  a  knitted  brow.  A  man  is  apt  to  leave 
the  management  of  his  own  daughters  to  his 
wife,  even  though  he  is  a  philosopher  and 
prolific  in  theories.  I  had  rather  taken  it 
for  granted  that  certain  advanced  notions  of 
mine  regarding  the  conduct  of  women's  lives 
would  be  allowed  to  lie  dormant  in  my  brain 
for  lack  of  an  animating  cause,  or,  more  ac 
curately  speaking,  for  lack  of  moral  courage 
on  my  part  to  exploit  them  for  the  benefit  of 
my  own  flesh  and  blood.  It  is  more  satis 
factory  to  try  experiments  in  the  line  of  edu 
cation  on  someone  else's  children.  Besides, 
I  had  argued  that  Josephine  "was  the  proper 
person  to  propose  a  departure  from  the  es 
tablished  method,  in  conformity  with  which 
conclusion  I  had  paid  out  a  handsome  round 
sum  for  a  coming-out  party  and  a  social  ward 
robe  for  my  eldest  girl.  But  now  I  felt  in 
conscience  bound  to  prick  up  my  ears. 

"  She  doesn't  know  herself  what  she  wishes 


A   PHILOSOPHER 


117 


to  do,"  said  my  wife,  dejectedly.  "She  is 
daft  on  the  subject  of  books  and  education." 

"  Is  not  that  rather  to  her  credit  ?  "  I  vent 
ured  to  inquire. 

Josephine  gazed  at  me  as  though  my  words 
had  stung  her. 

"  Of  course  it  is  / 

to  her  credit,"  she 
replied,  almost 
fiercely.  "You 
know  perfectly  well, 
Fred,  I  have  en 
couraged  the  girls 
to  study  and  culti 
vate  their  minds  in 
every  conceivable 
manner,  and  that  I 
have  always  said 
they  should  have 
equal  advantages  in 

the  way  of  education  with  their  brothers  so  far 
as  it  was  possible  to  procure  them.  I  have 
just  told  you  that  if  Josie  had  wished  to  be  a 
student  and  to  go  in  for  a  career  of  some 
kind,  I  should  have  been  perfectly  willing ; 
yes,  I  should  have  been  glad.  But  it  docs 
seem  hard  that  they  should  change  places, 


118  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

and  the  one  who  is  a  radiant  beauty,  and 
sure  to  be  universally  admired,  should  take 
it  into  her  head  to  cut  loose  from  society.  I 
remember  saying  when  she  was  christened 
that  we  were  gambling  with  Divine  Provi 
dence  in  giving  her  such  an  individualizing 
name,  for  fear  she  would  grow  up  a  fright. 
I  little  thought  I  was  running  the  risk  of  such 
a  contingency  as  this." 

"  It  is  hard,  Josephine,"  I  murmured,  wish 
ing  to  be  sympathetic.  "  I  think,  though, 
you  are  a  little  premature  in  taking  it  for 
granted  that  Winona  will  not  come  round  all 
right  in  the  end." 

My  darling  shook  her  head.  "  She  may 
consent  to  go  about  in  order  to  please  me, 
but  her  heart  will  never  be  in  it.  Oh,  I 
know !  "  she  added,  with  another  outburst, 
as  though  she  were  arguing  with  an  accusing 
spirit,  "  that  society  is  all  very  frivolous  in 
theory  and  a  waste  of  time,  and  that  the 
moralists  and  people  who  never  had  the 
chance  to  go  anywhere  would  tell  me  I  ought 
to  be  thankful  to  have  a  daughter  who  cares 
for  something  besides  going  to  balls  and  din 
ner-parties  and  flirting  with  young  men. 
That's  the  way  they  would  look  at  it ;  but 


A  PHILOSOPHER  119 

they  might  argue  until  they  were  black  in 
the  face  and  they  couldn't  make  me  feel 
otherwise  than  disappointed.  And,  what  is 
more,  I  believe  that  Winona  will  be  very  sorry 
herself  ten  years  hence  if  she  perseveres  in 
her  present  determination." 

These  last  words  were  spoken  by  my  wife 
almost  tragically,  and  it  was  evident  to  me 
that  they  proceeded  from  the  heart.  I  am 
free  to  confess  that  when  Josephine  gives 
utterance  to  opinions  with  so  much  earnest 
ness  as  this  I  cannot  help  feeling  that  there 
must  be  more  or  less  truth  in  them.  She 
may  be  no  philosopher,  but  she  is  a  sensible 
woman.  And  especially  in  a  matter  where 
another  woman,  and  one  of  her  own  flesh  and 
blood,  besides,  is  concerned,  it  would  certain 
ly  seem  as  though  she  would  be  apt  to  be 
right.  This  whole  business  of  the  emancipa 
tion  of  woman  is  one  well  adapted  to  drive  a 
philosopher,  to  say  nothing  of  the  father  of  a 
family,  crazy.  Naturally  I  wish  my  daugh 
ters  to  become  all  that  they  ought  to  be.  On 
the  other  hand,  if  a  paterfamilias  cannot  trust 
his  better  half  on  this  particular  subject,  he 
may  as  well  imitate  the  example  of  certain 
savage  tribes,  and  make  mince-meat  of  the 


120  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

girls.  Perhaps  I  seem  to  be  worked  up  on 
the  subject?  Well,  I  am.  The  din  of  the 
moralists,  and  of  the  people  who  have  never 
had  a  chance  to  go  anywhere,  is  in  my  ears, 
and  I  cannot  get  altogether  rid  of  it.  Let  us 
start  afresh  and  attack  the  question  from 
another  point  of  view. 

There  is  no  doubt,  even  to  the  average 
masculine  mind,  although  the  possessor  of 
the  mind  may  not  publish  the  fact  on  the 
housetops,  that  the  most  interesting  product 
of  this  enlightened  century  is  emancipated 
woman.  There  are  certain  enthusiasts,  though 
principally  of  the  emancipated  sex,  who  are 
already  so  confident  as  to  the  rapid  future 
progress  and  ultimate  glorious  evolution  of 
womankind  that  they  are  ready  to  venture 
the  prediction  to  people  whom  they  think 
they  can  trust,  that  sooner  or  later  there  will 
be  no  more  men.  Whether  this  desirable  re 
sult  is  to  be  brought  about  by  the  gradual 
extinction  or  snuffing  out  of  the  hitherto 
sterner  sex  by  a  process  of  killing  kindness, 
or  by  the  discovery  of  a  system  of  generation 
whereby  women  only  will  be  procreated,  is 
not  foretold  by  these  seers  of  the  future  ;  ac 
cordingly,  while  one  might  not  be  warranted 


A  PHILOSOPHER  121 

in  dismissing  the  theory  as  utenable,  its  ful 
filment  may  fairly  be  regarded  as  a  remote 
expectancy,  and  consigned  to  the  considera 
tion  of  real  philosophers. 

There  is  no  doubt,  though,  that  woman  has 
been  kept  down  for  generations,  and  has 
only  just  begun  to  bob  up  serenely,  to  hazard 
a  colloquial  metaphor.  The  eyes  of  civiliza 
tion  are  upon  her,  and  there  is  legitimate 
curiosity  from  Christiania  to  Yokohama  to 
discover  what  she  is  going  to  do.  To  me  as 
a  philosopher,  and  taking  into  account  one 
consideration  with  another,  including  Jo 
sephine's  plaint,  it  seems  as  though  woman 
would  have  much  plainer  sailing  in  her  pro 
gress  toward  reconstruction  if  it  were  not 
that  she  is  so  exceedingly  good-looking  in 
spots  and  bunches.  Let  her  distinction  as 
an  ornamental  factor  be  totally  negatived  and 
overcome,  and  there  is  no  telling  how  rapidly 
she  might  progress.  By  ornament,  I  mean, 
of  course,  not  merely  beauty  of  face  and  form, 
but  sweetness  of  speech,  delicacy  of  physique 
and  sentiment,  captivating  clothes,  and  all 
those  distinguishing  characteristics  which 
have  tended  to  fasten  upon  the  female  sex 
the  epithet  of  gentle.  It  will  generally  be 


122  THU  OPINIONS  OF 

admitted  that  women  of  homely  presence, 
clumsy  in  their  gait,  dowdy  in  their  dress, 
and  raucous  in  their  intonation,  are  much 
safer  from  the  infliction  of  gallantries  at  the 
hands  or  lips  of  mortal  men  than  those  whose 
attributes  are  more  pleasing ;  and  it  is  safe 
to  assert  that  many  a  male  monster  has  been 
rooted  to  his  seat  in  street-cars  by  the  coldly 
intellectual  eye  of  some  not  altogether  able- 
bodied  feminine  person.  The  recent  victories 
all  along  the  line  of  women  over  men  in  ex 
amination-rooms,  and  their  more  or  less  suc 
cessful  ventures  in  the  fields  of  law,  medicine, 
and  newspaper  enterprise,  would  be  more  ap 
palling  to  man  and  encouraging  to  the  pro 
gressionists,  but  for  the  obstinate  though 
obvious  adhesion  of  the  great  mass  of  woman 
kind  to  the  trick  bequeathed  to  them  by  their 
great-great-grandmothers  of  trying  to  look  as 
well  as  they  can.  And  the  terrible  part  of  it 
is  they  succeed  so  wonderfully  that  philos 
ophers  like  myself  are  apt  to  find  our  ratio 
cinations  wofully  mixed  when  we  try  to  reason 
about  the  matter. 

You  remember,  perhaps,  that  Josephine 
induced  me  earlier  in  our  wedded  life  to  give 
a  large  party  for  her  sister  Julia  ?  Within  a 


A  PHILOSOPHER  123 

year  I  have  submitted  to  a  similar  domestic 
upheaval  on  account  of  my  elder  daughter, 
and  I  do  not  think  that  it  can  be  said  that  I 
acquitted  myself  in  either  case  malignantly 
or  even  morosely.  Indeed,  though  this  is 
not  strictly  relevant  to  the  discussion,  my 
wife  informed  me  after  Josie's  party  was  over 
that  I  had  behaved  like  an  angel.  Now,  my 
sister -iii-law,  Julia,  is  still  unmarried,  and  she 
cannot  be  far  from  thirty.  As  I  reflected  at 
the  time  she  came  out,  she  is  less  comely 
than  my  wife  and  not  so  sagacious,  but  she  is 
decidedly  an  attractive  girl.  She  has  had 
every  advantage  in  the  line  of  social  enter 
tainments,  and  every  opportunity  to  meet 
available  young  men.  She  has  waltzed  all 
winter  and  been  successively  to  Bar  Harbor 
and  Newport  in  summer.  She  has  been  to 
Europe  so  as  to  let  people  forget  her  and  to 
reappear  as  a  novelty,  and  she  has  altered 
the  shape  of  her  hair  twice  to  my  individual 
observation.  Yet  somehow  she  hangs  fire. 
I  am  informed  by  Josephine,  in  strict  confi 
dence,  that  she  has  had  offers  and  might  have 
been  married  to  at  least  one  eminently  de 
sirable  man  before  this  had  she  seen  fit  to 
accept  him  ;  but  I  tell  my  darling  that  though 


124  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

the  consciousness  of  what  might  have  been 
may  be  a  legitimate  consolation  to  her  and  to 
her  sister,  it  does  not  controvert  the  bald  fact 
that  Julia  is  still  unmarried  at  the  end  of  ten 
years  of  social  divagations. 

I  do  not  mean  that  Julia  may  not  marry. 
Very  likely  she  will.  She  certainly  ought  to 
if  she  has  the  desire;  and  she  has  time 
enough  yet  if  the  right  man  only  thinks  so. 
It  is  rather  on  the  system  I  am  pondering 
than  on  the  individual,  though  the  vision  of 
Josie  at  thirty  unwedded,  and  a  little  hard 
and  worn,  haunts  my  retina  and  makes  me 
feel  philosophical.  Away  down  in  the  bottom 
of  my  boots  or  my  soul,  or  wherever  a  man 
can  most  safely  harbor  a  secret  reflection,  has 
long  lain  a  feeling  of  wonder  that  the  world 
continues  to  put  its  daintiest,  most  cherished, 
and  most  carefully  tended  daughters  through 
the  peculiar  social  programme  in  vogue.  Is 
it  not  bewilderingly  true  that  every  young 
woman  of  position  and  manners  in  Christen 
dom,  be  her  father  a  Knight  of  the  Garter  or 
a  Congressman,  her  mother  an  azure-blooded 
countess  or  the  ambitious  better  half  of  a 
retired  grocer,  finds  on  the  threshold  of  life 
only  one  course  open  to  her  if  she  desires  to 


A  PHILOSOPHER  125 

be  conventional,  and  to  do  what  is  naturally 
expected  of  her  ?  From  twelve  to  eighteen 
instruction — and  in  these  latter  days  exem 
plary  instruction — Latin,  Greek,  if  there  is  a 
craving  for  it,  history,  psychology,  chemistry, 
political  economy,  to  say  nothing  of  the  mod 
ern  languages  and  special  courses  in  summer 
in  botany,  conchology,  and  physiology.  And 
then,  dating  from  a  long  anticipated  day,  or 
rather  night,  a  metamorphosis  startling  as  the 
transition  of  the  cocoon;  a  formal  letting 
loose  of  the  finished  maiden  on  the  polished 
parquet  floor  of  the  social  arena.  Tra-la-la- 
la-la  !  Tra-la-la-la-la !  Off  she  whirls  to  the 
rhythm  of  a  Strauss  waltz  or  a  blood-stirring 
polka,  and  for  the  next  four  years,  on  an  aver 
age,  she  never  stops,  metaphorically  speaking. 
She  may  not  always  be  waltzing  or  polkaing, 
but  if  she  is  conventionally  sound  she  is  sure 
to  be  in  a  whirl.  She  exchanges  daylight  for 
gaslight ;  her  daily  sustenance  is  stewed  mush 
rooms  with  a  rich  gray  gravy,  beef-tea,  and 
ice-cream,  varied  by  an  occasional  mouthful 
of  fillet  as  a  conscience  composer.  All  winter 
she  participates  in  a  feverish  round  of  balls, 
receptions,  luncheons,  dinners,  teas,  theatre 
parties,  with  every  now  and  then  a  wedding. 


120  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

All  summer  she  sails,  floats,  glides,  ^IS; 
perches,  sprawls,  walks,  meanders,  talks, 
climbs,  rides,  saunters,  or  dances  madly  as 
her  mood  or  circumstances  suggest.  There 
is  her  life,  varying  a  little  according  to  clime 
and  disposition,  according  to  whether  she  is 
daughter  of  a  duke  or  of  a  successful  grocer. 
It  is  what  everyone  expects  of  her,  so  no 
one  is  surprised  ;  and  she  is  expected  also  to 
keep  up  the  pace  until  she  is  married,  which 
is  likely  to  come  to  pass  any  day,  but  which, 
as  in  the  case  of  poor  Julia,  may  not  be  until 
she  is  thirty  v  Fancy  living  on  mushrooms 
with  a  rich  gray  gravy  and  successively  waltz 
ing,  meandering,  or  floating  with  the  Tom, 
Dick,  and  Harry  of  the  workaday  social  world 
from  eighteen  to  thirty !  And  yet  we  fathers 
and  philosophers  ask  ourselves  why  in  thunde"r 
(or  even  more  vehemently)  our  daughters  have 
nervous  prostration.  Why  should  they?  And 
yet  I  hear  Josephine  ask,  for  the  discussion  is 
uppermost  in  our  thoughts  at  the  moment : 

"  Do  you  wish  Winona  to  become  a  second 
Miss  Jacket?" 

"  Let  me  explain  that  Miss  Jacket,  Miss 
Cora  Jacket,  M.D.,  lives  opposite  to  us, 
and  has  for  some  months  been  a  serious 


A  PHILOSOPHER  127 

menace  to  the  happiness  of  Josephine,  in 
that  my  wife  declares  that  the  wretch  is 
poisoning  our  Winona's  mind.  The  charge 
startled  me  seriously  when  it  was  broached, 
but  I  have  been  trying  to  consider  dispas 
sionately  whether  the  injury  likely  to  be 
worked  will  be  greater  than  that  consequent 
upon  a  continuous  fare  of  mushrooms  with 
rich  gray  gravy  and  flirtation.  Winona  and 
Miss  Cora  Jacket,  M.D.,  are  certainly  thicker 
than  thieves ;  hence  a  pardonable  lurking 
suspicion  in  Josephine's  mind  that  the  older 
woman  is  seeking  to  induce  the  beauty  of 
our  family  to  study  medicine.  Dr.  Jacket 
must  be  thirty — just  about  the  age  of  my 
sister-in-law.  To  me  she  appears  to  be  a 
trig,  energetic  little  woman,  rather  pretty 
and  rather  well  dressed,  and  though  she 
seems  intelligent  there  is  nothing  especially 
frigid  or  forbidding  in  her  eye.  Its  intellect 
uality  is  not  forced  upon  one.  I  have  found 
her  so  attractive  that  I  ventured  to  insinuate, 
by  way  of  answer  to  my  wife's  expostulation, 
that  Winona  might  do  much  worse  than 
model  herself  on  Miss  Cora  Jacket,  M.D. 
This  drew  upon  my  head  the  vial  of  Jose 
phine's  righteous  wrath. 


OF  THB 


128  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

"  Now,  Fred,  just  stop  and  think  for  one 
moment,"  she  said.  "  I  have  not  a  word  to 
say  against  Miss  Jacket.  I  have  no  doubt 
she  is  a  most  worthy  young  woman  and  an 
excellent  physician,  though  I  should  never 
care  to  consult  her  myself.  But  that  is 
neither  here  nor  there.  Do  you  happen  to 
know  what  Miss  Jacket's  antecedents  were, 
and  what  her  life  has  been  ?  " 

I  shook  my  head  droopingly. 

"  She  was  born  in  Ohio,  and  was  left  an 
orphan,  and  practically  unprovided  for,  at 
an  early  age.  She  was  helped  by  kind 
friends — all  this  is  from  her  own  lips — until 
she  was  old  enough  to  help  herself  by  teach 
ing,  and  then,  by  some  means  or  other,  she 
came  East  and  studied  medicine,  and  made 
the  start  for  herself  that  you  see.  All  of 
which,  I  beg  to  anticipate  you  in  saying,  is 
marvellously  to  her  credit.  She  is  plainly  a 
brilliant  and  capable  young  woman  of  whom 
any  mother  might  be  proud,  provided  she 
had  to  be.  But  because  it  was  creditable  and 
sensible  in  Miss  Jacket  to  make  the  most  of 
herself  in  that  particular  way,  you  surely 
would  not  advocate  that  the  daughters  of  the 


A  PHILOSOPHER  129 

Princess  of  Wales  and  the  Empress  of  Ger 
many  should  do  the  same." 

"I  should  certainly  advocate  their  doing 
something  useful,"  I  said  in  my  dogged 
fashion.  "  Besides,  Winona  is  the  daughter 
neither  of  the  Princess  of  Wales  nor  the 
Empress  of  Germany." 

"  No,  she  is  not,"  said  Josephine,  in  a  tone 
which  seemed  to  imply  that  she  was  grateful 
for  the  escape.  After  all,  who  of  us  to-day 
would  give  a  rush  to  be  a  king  or  queen? 
What  successful  business  or  professional  man 
would  exchange  the  exquisite  comfort  of  the 
domestic  hearth  and  all  the  magazines  for  the 
prerogatives  of  royalty  ?  I  understood  per 
fectly  what  Josephine  wished  to  express,  and 
agreed  with  her  on  the  point.  Her  daughters, 
save  for  a  little  pomp  and  circumstance,  were 
practically  the  peers  of  any  and  all  princesses. 

"  Just  consider,  for  a  moment,  Winona  and 
Miss  Jacket  side  by  side,"  Josephine  contin 
ued.  "  Don't  you  see  any  difference  between 
them?" 

"  Well,  of  course,  Winona  is  an  unusually 
handsome  girl,"  I  murmured.  "  Besides,  she 
is  younger." 

"Younger!"  groaned  Josephine,  evidently 


130  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

believing  me  hopeless.  "  Do  you  really,  se 
riously  think,  Fred,  that  they  are  to  be  men 
tioned  in  the  same  breath  as  ladies  ?  " 

I  rather  think  I  looked  foolish  and  twiddled 
my  fingers. 

"  If,"  said  Josephine,  with  an  emphasis  on 
the  conjunction,  and  repeating  it  still  more 
emphatically,  "if  it  were  necessary  I  would 
not  say  a  word.  If  Winona  were  one  of  seven 
girls,  I  should  be  sorry,  but  I  would  not  say 
a  word.  If  it  had  been  Josie.  I  should  have 
been  rather  pleased — which  shows,  Fred,  that 
I  am  not  altogether  hostile  to  the  spirit  of  the 
age.  But  I  am  not  prepared  as  yet  to  see 
my  only  really  handsome  daughter — and  such 
a  handsome  one,  Fred — fly  in  the  face  of  con 
vention  and  custom  merely — merely  to  please 
Miss  Jacket  and  the  people  who  never  have 
a  chance  to  go  anywhere." 

All  Josephine's  combativeness  and  pride 
of  opinion  seemed  to  ooze  suddenly  away, 
and  she  buried  her  face  on  my  shoulder, 
murmuring — 

"  Oh,  yes,  the  whole  system  of  society  for 
girls  is  ridiculous  and  degenerating.  I  know  it, 
I  know  it  perfectly  well.  I  don't  approve  of  it, 
I  never  have  approved  of  it.  I  wonder  that  so 


A  PHILOSOPHER  131 

many  come  out  of  it  as  well  as  they  do.  And 
they  are  not  content  as  in  my  day  to  be  merely 
giddy  ;  they  go  in  now  for  smoking  cigarettes 
and  drinking  liqueurs  after  dinner,  and  some 
of  them  paint  their  faces.  Not  all  of  them, 
of  course,  not  one-tenth  of  them ;  Josie  will 
never  do  anything  of  the  kind.  I  ought, 
though,  to  be  thankful,  heartily  thankful,  if 
Winona  prefers  to  stay  away  from  all  this  and 
to  develop  worthy  tastes  of  her  own.  She 
shall  do  what  she  pleases,  Fred,  only " 

My  darling  stopped  short  as  though  she 
had  concluded  not  to  complete  her  sentence. 
She  gulped  bravely  and  lifted  her  eyes  to 
mine. 

"Kiss  me,  dear,"  she  whispered.  "I  am 
not  really  so  worldly  as  you  think." 

"  You  are  an  angel,  and  will  never  be  any 
thing  else  to  me,"  I  responded,  stroking  her 
hair. 

She  lay  still  for  a  moment,  happy  but  pen 
sive.  "  She  shall  do  whatever  she  pleases ; 
only  it  is  a  very  much  easier  matter  for  you 
to  be  virtuous  and  to  say,  '  L/et  her  study 
medicine/  than  for  me." 

"  I  have  not  said  so,  dearest." 

"You  have  thought  so,  though.     You  do 


132  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

not  need  to  speak  to  have  me  know  when  you 
are  thinking  things.  No  man  can  possibly 
conceive  what  it  means  to  a  mother  to  have  a 
daughter  a  radiant  beauty  and  peculiar." 

"I  dare  say  not,"  I  murmured,  humbly. 

"Especially,"  she  continued,  reflectively, 
"when  you  consider  that,  though  society  is 
foolish,  there  is  really  nothing  else  at  present 
to  take  its  place  to  give  a  girl  what  nothing 
else  is  likely  to  give  her — I  do  not  say  noth 
ing  else  can  give  it  to  her,  but  nothing  else  is 
in  the  least  likely  to ;  and  when  you  consider 
the  vast  number  of  wives  and  mothers  who 
who  have  been  through  it  all  when  they  were 
young,  and  are  charming  and — yes,  Fred, 
sensible,  intelligent  women  to-day.  I  don't 
pretend  that  I  myself  am  half  what  I  might 
have  been,  but  I  went  through  it  all  as  a  girl 
without  becoming  absolutely  vapid  and  vola 
tile.  Didn't  I,  dear?" 

"  You  certainly  did,  Josephine.  If  Winona 
turns  out  your  equal  I  shall  be  more  than 
satisfied." 

"  Thank  you,  dear,  but  you  mustn't  say  it. 
I  do  wish  her  to  have  more  mind.  My  mind 
was  more  or  less  neglected ;  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  Fred,  I  never  had  the  opportunity  to 


A  PHILOSOPHER  133 

be  peculiar,  for  there  was  no  chance  to  be  in 
those  days.  Now  the  disease  is  liable  to  break 
out  in  any  family.  All  we  can  do,  Fred,  is  to 
remember  that  we  are  growing  old,  and  to  trust 
that  the  world  of  to-day  is  wiser  than  we." 

"  Amen  ! "  I  murmured. 

And  yet  the  consciousness  that  Josephine 
passed  through  it  all  and  is  what  she  is, 
makes  me  feel  a  little  doubtful  still  on  the 
score  of  the  new  dispensation,  in  spite  of  the 
mushrooms  with  rich  gray  gravy. 


VII 

MY  daughter  Winona  has  become  a  Chris 
tian  Scientist,  and  Josephine  says  I 
have  only  myself  to  blame  in  that  I  en 
couraged  her  to  model  herself  upon  Miss 
Jacket.  This  strikes  me  as  a  little  harsh,  see 
ing  that  Miss  Jacket,  M.D.,  is  a  regular  prac 
titioner  in  the  allopathic  line,  whereas  'Wi 
nona  declares  that  the  science  of  medicine  is 
all  nonsense,  for  the  excellent  reason  that 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  disease.  When  I 
used  this  argument  as  a  defence,  Josephine 
regarded  me  scornfully,  and  remarked  that 
the  pair  were  practically  one  in  ideas,  and 
that  it  was  futile  of  me  to  split  straws  on  such 
a  point.  Ye  gods  and  little  fishes  !  Is  it,  for 
sooth,  splitting  straws  to  maintain  that  there 
can  be  no  sympathy  of  soul  between  a  woman 
doctor  who  takes  you  at  your  word  and  ad 
ministers  castor-oil  to  cure  your  stomach-ache 
and  one  who  elevates  her  nose  and  vows  that 
you  haven't  one? 


OPINIONS  OF  A  PHILOSOPHER       135 

"  You  can't  make  fish  of  one  and  flesh  of 
another,"  continued  my  wife,  majestically. 
"  The  mischief  was  done  when  they  walked 
arm-in-arm  for  weeks  together  while  they 
were  becoming  intimate.  It  makes  little  dif 
ference,  it  seems  to  me,  as  to  the  precise  nat 
ure  of  the  development.  If  Winona  hadn't 
embraced  (as  she  calls  it)  Christian  Science, 
she  would  in  all  probability  have  worn 
bloomers,  in  which  case  I  should  not  have 
held  Dr.  Cora  Jacket  guiltless  merely  because 
that  young  woman  continued  to  wear  petti 
coats.  Neither  do  I  in  the  present  emer 
gency.  Who  was  it  introduced  Winona  to 
Mrs.  Titus,  I  should  like  to  know  ?  " 

"  Was  Miss  Jacket  responsible  for  that  ?  " 
I  inquired,  respectfully,  not  venturing  to  con 
test  further  the  soundness  of  my  wife's  logic 
in  her  present  excited  frame  of  mind. 

".She  was  indeed,  and  it  is  very  little  con 
solation  to  me  that  she  professes  to  be  sorry 
for  it  now."  Josephine  tapped  her  foot  with 
a  worried  air,  which  found  voice  presently  in 
a  laugh  born  of  sheer  desperation.  "  Isn't  it 
perfectly  ludicrous,  Fred?  Do  you  realize 
what  the  child  wishes  to  do  ?  " 

"I  understood  you  to  state  that  she  wishes 


136  THE   OPINIONS  OF 

to  enter  upon  a  crusade  to  show  that  all  our 
aches  and  pains  are  hallucinations.  There 
ought  to  be  a  fortune  in  that,  my  dear,  com 
pared  with  which  the  profits  from  David's  elec 
trical  discovery  will  pale  into  insignificance." 

"  This  is  no  laughing  matter,  Fred.  She  is 
intensely  in  earnest;  her  heart  is  set  upon 
the  plan,  and  there  is  no  use  in  arguing  with 
her.  She  simply  looks  calm  and  tells  you 
that  you  don't  know." 

I  scratched  my  head  and  pondered.  My 
younger  daughter's  plan,  as  it  had  been  un 
folded  to  me,  was  this :  She  proposed  to  set 
up  as  a  practitioner  of  Christian  Science  in 
partnership  with  another  young  woman  of 
the  same  faith.  They  were  to  cure  disease 
apparently  by  dint  of  assuring  their  patients 
that  because  there  is  no  such  thing  as  matter, 
nothing  could  be  the  matter  with  any  one. 
Their  instructress,  Mrs.  Titus,  had  demon 
strated  the  truth  of  this  theory  by  a  varied 
line  of  cures,  and  they  had  been  encouraged 
by  her  to  go  on  with  the  good  work.  Had  I 
any  objection  to  the  scheme  ? 

"  Perhaps  I  had  better  talk  the  matter  over 
with  her  and  try  to  bring  her  to  her  senses," 
I  remarked. 


A  PHILOSOPHER  137 

"  I  wish  you  joy  of  the  experience,"  said 
my  wife,  with  a  wry  smile.  "  She  is  like  a 
seraph  in  her  serenity,  and  I  might  just  as 
well  have  been  talking  to  a  stone  wall  for  all 
the  effect  my  words  seemed  to  have.  Of 
course  you  can  prevent  her ;  she  understands 
that ;  but  I  should  like  to  see  you  alter  her 
opinion." 

I  concluded  to  try.  Accordingly,  I  sum 
moned  Winona  to  the  library  that  evening, 
and  we  were  closeted  with  folded  doors,  as 
the  phrase  is,  for  an  hour  and  a  half.  Being 
a  father  I  was  desirous  naturally  to  be  judi 
cious  and  yet  sympathetic ;  being  a  philoso 
pher,  I  was  willing  to  be  enlightened  if  I  was 
ignorant.  My  son  David  had  demonstrated 
to  me  that  a  young  germ  of  tuberculosis  has 
all  the  engaging  attractiveness  of  a  six- 
months'  old  baby  ;  perhaps  it  had  been  re 
served  for  my  daughter  to  prove  to  me  that  I 
had  never  had  constitutional  headaches.  If 
so,  what  an  amount  of  unnecessary  misery  I 
had  undergone  from  sheer  lack  of  knowledge  ! 

Conventional  conceptions  are  slow  to  relax 
their  grip  even  when  one's  reason  is  prepared 
to  discard  them  as  out -worn.  I  am  not  giv 
ing  utterance  in  this  sententious  fashion  to 


138  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

distrust  in  allopathy  ;  I  simply  am  thinking 
of  the  qualms  which  persisted  in  harrowing 
my  soul  as  I  gazed  upon  my  very  beautiful 
daughter,  and  tried  to  feel  proud  that  she  was 
endeavoring  to  do  something  useful.  My  as 
sociations  with  lovely  women  are  so  intimate 
ly  associated  with  the  ball-room  floor  and 
the  purlieus  of  polite  society,  that,  in  spite 
of  my  secret  sympathy  with  the  progress  of 
the  sex,  I  could  not  completely  school  my 
mental  machinery  so  as  to  exclude  a  lurking 
regret  that  such  arrant  good  looks  were  to  be 
wasted  upon  people  who  had  nothing  the 
matter  with  them,  and  who  would,  perhaps, 
be  slow  in  recognizing  the  fact.  I  was  even 
weak  enough  to  remark  : 

"Winona,  my  dear,  you  look  this  evening 
handsome  enough  to  eat." 

As  Christian  Scientists  are  said  to  harbor 
the  belief  that,  owing  to  the  non-existence  of 
matter,  looks  of  any  kind  are  a  delusion  and 
snare,  for  the  reason  that  individuals  do  not 
really  exist,  but  r.re  merely  so  many  reflec 
tions  of  the  one  eternal  and  immutable  exist 
ence,  just  as  the  various  reflections  in  a 
stream  are  often  but  the  continuous  duplica 
tion  of  some  single  incandescent  jet,  it  was 


A  PHILOSOPHER  139 

scarcely  to  be  expected  that  my  darling 
daughter  would  fall  a  victim  to  the  lure  which 
I  held  out  to  her.  She  had  the  goodness  to 
smile  a  ghost  of  a  smile,  but  it  was  evident 
that  the  speech  interested  her  very  little. 
Before  settling  down  to  the  business  in  hand 
I  could  not  help,  however,  saying  to  myself 
that,  if  I  were  a  young  man,  I  should  fall 
down  and  worship  before  this  particular 
shrine,  Christian  Science  and  delusion  to  the 
contrary  notwithstanding.  Then  I  said,  with 
as  much  cheer  as  I  could  muster : 

"And  so  you  wish  to  practise  medicine, 
Winona  ?  " 

"Not  medicine,  father.  It  is  Christian 
Science." 

"  Excuse  me.  But  are  not  Christian  Scien 
tists  doctors  ?  " 

"We  do  not  give  medicine." 

"  But  you  cure  sick  people  ?  " 

Winona  shook  her  head  and  smiled  sweet 
ly.  "  There  are  no  sick  people,"  she  said, 
with  quiet  decision. 

"  Then  why  are  there  so  many  physi 
cians  ?  " 

"If  people  had  the  requisite  faith,  there 
would  be  no  more  physicians." 


140 


THE  OPINIONS  OF 


11  Only  Christian  Scientists." 
My  daughter  looked  at  me  no  less  sweetly 
because  of  my  taunt,  and  responded : 

< — Uwr-., 


"  In  time  we  shall  all  be  able  to  heal  our 
selves.  It  is  simply  a  question  of  strength  and 
degree.  Some  of  us  have  more  power  than 
others  at  present,  but  as  the  world  grows  the 
number  of  those  sufficient  unto  themselves 
will  increase." 


A  PHILOSOPHER 


"  What  makes  you  think  so  ?" 

"I  know  it,  father." 

"  From  Mrs.  Titus  ?  "     • 

"Mrs.  Titus  knows  it  too;  but  I  know  it 
not  merely  because  she  knows  it,  but  because 
I  can  feel  that  it  is  so." 

"  But,  my  dear  child,  surely  you  do  not 
mean  to  tell  me  that  if  I  were  to  have  typhoid 
fever,  I  shouldn't  have  it  ?  " 

"I  know  that  you  would  think  you  had 
it." 

"Well,  supposing  I  died,  wouldn't  I  be 
dead?" 

Winona  hesitated  for  an  instant,  but  it  was 
only  in  order  to  avoid  committing  herself  to 
one  heresy  while  seeking  to  avoid  another. 
"  You  would  be  dead,  though  perhaps  not  as 
we  now  understand  being  dead.  You  would 
not  have  died  of  typhoid  fever,  but  of  the  be 
lief  that  you  were  suffering  from  typhoid 
fever  induced  by  the  hallucination  of  error." 

"I  see,"  I  answered,  though  to  tell  the 
truth  I  did  not,  and  it  was  very  evident  to  me 
that  Winona  thought  so  too,  for  her  serene 
smile  revealed  just  a  tinge  of  amusement. 
Even  a  real  philosopher  would  be  apt  to  feel 
nettled  were  he  to  suspect  that  he  was  mak- 


142  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

ing  himself  ridiculous  in  the  eyes  of  his  most 
beautiful  daughter.  I  said  a  little  sternly  : 

"I  wish  you  would  explain  to  me,  in  the 
first  place,  what  you  mean  by  saying  that  I 
might  not  be  dead  as  we  now  understand  be 
ing  dead." 

Winona  folded  her  hands.  "I  said  that, 
father,  because  we  Christian  Scientists  are 
not  yet  certain  as  to  what  is  the  precise  nat 
ure  of  death.  There  are  some  who  deem 
death  also  an  hallucination,  and  the  appar 
ent  annihilation  of  matter  consequent  upon 
it  merely  a  reflex  confirmation  of  the  truth 
that  there  is  no  matter,  only  spirit;  and  it 
may  well  be  that  as  the  world  grows  in 
faith,  death  will  disappear  in  that  we  shall 
cease  to  think  we  see  matter.  Mrs.  Titus 
holds  this  view,  but  I  am  not  yet  sufficiently 
free  from  error  to  be  sure  that  I  believe  it." 

"But  you  are  sure  you  believe  that  I 
should  not  have  typhoid  fever  ?  " 

"Perfectly." 

"  But  what  if  the  doctors  said  I  had  ?  " 

"  They  would  be  mistaken,  father." 

I  stroked  my  chin  in  order  to  bridle  my 
tongue.  "How  old  are  you,  Winona?"  I 
asked. 


A  PHILOSOPHER  143 

"  Just  eighteen,  father." 

"  You  have  never  studied  medicine,  I  be 
lieve  ?  " 

"No." 

"Nor  had  any  special  advantages  or  op 
portunities  to  investigate  the  nature  of  dis 
ease  ?  " 

"  Only  through  Mrs.  Titus." 

"  Precisely.  And  yet  you  are  willing  to 
call  yourself  wiser  than  the  men  who  have 
devoted  their  lives  to  its  study — the  physi 
cians  of  London,  Paris,  Berlin,  and  Vienna, 
to  say  nothing  of  those  of  New  York  and 
Boston." 

A  faint  flush  overspread  Winona's  face. 
"  The  doctors  have  been  mistaken  many 
times  before,  father.  You  remember  Harvey 
and  the  circulation  of  the  blood.  The  doc 
tors  laughed  at  him  at  first." 

"  But  Harvey  was  a  trained  student  of 
medicine  ;  you  are  a  school-girl." 

"  Mrs.  Titus  is  not  a  school-girl." 

"  Has  she  ever  studied  medicine  ?  " 

"  I  think  not.  But  as  disease  is  simply 
human  error,  we  consider  the  study  of  medi 
cine  a  waste  of  time.  Our  faith  teaches  us 
that  everything  which  doctors  call  illness  is 


144  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

merely  a  clouding  of  truth  in  the  soul  by 
error." 

"  And  how  do  you  cure  your  patients  who 
suffer  from  the  error  of  typhoid  fever  ?  " 

"By  the  restoration  of  truth  and  their 
faith  in  truth." 

"  By  what  active  means  ?  What  do  you 
do?" 

"  We  think  of  them.  We  bring  our  minds 
to  bear  upon  the  error  in  their  minds." 

"  Is  that  all  ?  " 

"It  is  sufficient,  father.  Mrs.  Titus  has 
effected  wonderful  cures  by  this  means 
only." 

"  Does  she  cure  all  her  patients  ?" 

"  When  she  does  not  cure  them,  it  is  be 
cause  error  has  blinded  them  to  the  percep 
tion  of  truth.  If  all  could  perceive  truth, 
there  would  be  no  more  error ;  and,  as  it  is, 
there  are  many  who  cannot  perceive  as  yet 
even  faintly." 

"  And  this  is  all  ?  " 

"Yes,  provided  you  understand." 

"  I  understand  the  fundamental  truth  to  be 
that  matter  does  not  exist." 

"  It  does  not." 

"  So  that  even  our  bodies  are  a  sham." 


A  PHILOSOPHER  145 

"  We  believe  that  our  bodies  exist,   but 
they  do  not  really." 

"  Then  why  do  you  believe  it  ?  " 
"  I  do  not  believe  it,  but  I  am  not  yet  con 
scious  that  my  body  does  not  exist.  I  hope 
to  be  some  day,  yet  very  likely  I  shall  never 
be.  Mrs.  Titus  is  conscious  of  the  truth  at 
times." 

"  Why  do  you  say  '  at  times  ?  '  " 
"Because  she  is  still  somewhat  sensitive 
to  the  error  of  heat  and  cold.  She  considers 
this  a  weakness,  and  she  is  willing  to  admit 
that  she  is  not  wholly  free  from  error.  You 
see,  Mrs.  Titus  is  a  perfectly  reasonable 
woman,  father.  I  am  sure  you  would  think 
so,  if  you  could  hear  her  talk.  I  heard  her 
questioned  the  other  day  on  that  very  point 
of  susceptibility  to  cold.  Some  one  asked — 
and  asked  in  a  scoffing  spirit,  father :  '  Sup 
posing  you  were  to  go  out-doors,  Mrs.  Titus, 
with  nothing  on,  when  the  thermometer  was 
below  zero,  should  you  feel  cold  ?  '  Her  an 
swer  was  :  '  I  fear  I  should,  though  I  ought 
not  to.  It  is  possible  that  after  a  while  I 
might  be  proof  against  the  weakness,  but  in 
all  probability  I  should  never  be  able  to 
overcome  it.  It  is  simply  a  question  of  time, 
10 


146  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

though,  when  Christian  Science  is  able  to 
subdue  this  error.'  Was  that  not  unassum 
ingly  and  beautifully  put,  father  ?  " 

"  Quite  unlike  the  brutal  dogmatism  of  the 
regular  practitioner,  who  would  be  apt  to 
recommend  a  strait-jacket  for  the  individual 
who  should  venture  to  brave  the  rigor  of  our 
New  England  climate  without  a  stitch  of 
clothing." 

Although  I  spoke  with  a  sober  and  sympa 
thetic  mien,  my  beautiful  daughter  plainly 
distrusted  the  sincerity  of  my  words.  Her 
great  brown  eyes  regarded  me  mournfully, 
and  it  seemed  to  me  there  was  pity  in  them 
—pity  for  her  poor  benighted  parent.  She 
said,  sweetly  and  softly  : 

"  You  must  not  make  sport  of  Christian 
Science,  father.  It  has  done  a  great  deal  of 
good  already.  Besides,  Mrs.  Titus  did  not 
do  anything  of  the  kind.  There  is  nothing 
in  the  least  sensational  about  her." 

"  And  you  wish  to  follow  in  her  footsteps, 
my  dear  ?  " 

"  I  should  like  to  try  to." 

"  And  what  if  I  should  forbid  you  to  do 
anything  of  the  sort  ?  " 

Winona's    cheek    flushed    and    her     eyes 


A  PHILOSOPHER 


dropped  a  little  in  the  face  of  my  appearance 
of  sternness,  but  she  answered  with  the  same 
ineffable  sweetness,  as  though  she  were  seek 
ing  to  impress  upon  me  that  persecution 
could  not  ruffle  the  temper  of  one  of  her 
faith.  "  I  should  have  to  give  up  the  plan, 
of  course.  But,"  she  murmured,  "  I  should 
still  be  a  Christian  Scientist.  I  could  not 
help  being  one,  you  know." 

If  you  ask  me  why  I  did  not  remand  her 
to  afternoon  teas  and  the  mantua-makers,  or 
advise  her  to  allay  her  skipping  spirit  with 
some  cold  drops  of  philanthropy,  I  fear  that 
I  could  not  give  a  very  satisfactory  expla 
nation.  I  am  not,  and  I  never  shall  be, 
a  Christian  Scientist,  notwithstanding  my 
beauty  of  a  daughter  declares  that  she  can 
cure  the  proletariat  of  coughs,  colics,  and 
fevers  simply  by  thinking  about  them.  It 
was  Josephine,  not  I,  who  remarked,  after 
the  matter  was  settled,  and  Winona  had  be 
gun  to  keep  office  hours,  that  on  the  whole 
it  was  less  dreadful  than  if  she  had  become 
an  actress  or  joined  a  settlement  of  the  Toyn- 
bee  Hall  variety,  for  the  reason  that  she  still 
remained  at  home,  and  we  had  not  wholly 
lost  our  hold  upon  her.  Evidently  Josephine 


148  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

regards  her  behavior  as  a  passing  phase 
which  will  sooner  or  later  wear  off  and  leave 
her  more  like  other  people,  and  she  consid 
ers  the  actual  practice  of  Christian  Science 
rather  less  demoralizing,  from  a  conventional 
point  of  view,  than  some  other  forms  of  revolt. 
I  can  see  what  she  means.  However  honor 
able  her  intentions,  a  woman  who  has  knocked 
about  on  the  stage  for  half  a  dozen  years  is 
likely  to  have  her  perspective  of  life  enlarged 
to  such  an  extent  that  she  can  behold  with 
out  winking  many  things  which  are  carefully 
hidden  from  the  general  run  of  the  sex,  and 
the  consequence  is  that  she  is  apt  to  refuse 
to  wear  blinders  for  the  rest  of  her  existence. 
So,  too,  it  can  be  safely  predicated  that  con 
tinuous  exalted  fellowship  with  the  dregs  of 
the  population  on  the  part  of  women  weaned 
from  the  lap  of  luxury,  and  a  consequent 
sacrifice  of  almost  every  form  of  creature 
comfort,  barring  a  tooth-brush,  a  small  piano, 
a  few  books,  and  an  etching  or  two,  will  be 
likely  to  create  a  sterner  and  sterner  disrelish 
for  the  ice-cream  and  mushrooms  vista  of  life 
at  the  end  of  which  stands  a  husband  Avith  a 
newly  furnished  house  and  an  ample  income. 
My  wife  is  ready  to  admit  that  purely  from 


A  PHILOSOPHER  14(J 

the  point  of  view  of  common  sense  she  would 
have  preferred  to  have  the  child  do  almost 
anything  peculiar  rather  than  engage  in  her 
present  mummery,  because  some  people  will 
consider  her  crazy ;  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
she  maintains  that  the  chances  of  losing  her 
altogether  are  much  less  serious  than  if  she 
had  become  a  Toynbee  Haller,  for  instance. 
"Mind  you,"  said  Josephine,  "however 
much  I  might  have  fumed,  I  should  really 
have  been  very,  very  proud  if  she  had  gone 
in  for  that.  I  can  imagine,  if  you  once  got 
used  to  the  idea,  feeling  quite  as  happy  over 
it  as  if  one's  son  had  become  a  clergyman, 
which  of  course,"  she  added,  meditatively, 
"  is  a  peculiar  kind  of  happiness  not  just  like 
any  other.  But  it  would  have  meant  separa 
tion  forever,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  for 
I  am  too  old  to  change  my  interests  now, 
however  much  I  may  disapprove  of  them  in 
theory,  and  though  I  should  very  likely  go  in 
for  something  of  the  same  kind  in  case  I 
were  to  begin  life  over  again.  But  I  don't 
feel  as  though  this  Christian  Science  were 
more  than  a  temporary  craze  ;  and  being 
just  the  ordinary  every-day  woman  I  am,  I 
cannot  help  welcoming  the  possibility  that 


OF   THE 


150  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

Winona  in  course  of  time  will  come  to  her 
senses.  It  may  be  selfish  of  me,  but  I  can't 
help  it." 

Now,  I  do  not  regard  the  matter  from  quite 
such  a  personal  point  of  view  as  Josephine, 
though  I  agree  with  her  that  I  should  not 
have  picked  out  Christian  Science  as  the 
most  desirable  loop-hole  of  escape  from  the 
trammels  of  convention.  To  be  sure,  as 
Josephine  says,  it  is  her  loss  rather  than 
mine,  for  a  father  is  much  less  completely 
estranged  from  a  daughter  who  is  peculiar 
than  is  a  mother,  in  that  the  bond  of  clothes 
and  parties  and  all  the  hitherto  traditional 
tastes  of  woman  does  not  exist  between  a 
father  and  daughter.  Hence  it  is  probably 
much  easier  for  me  to  look  at  the  matter 
philosophical Jy  than  it  is  for  Josephine.  Ac 
cordingly,  thorv--h  I  laugh  in  my  sleeve  at 
the  solemn  pretensions  of  my  dear  deluded 
daughter,  and  am  more  or  less  uncomfortable 
in  consequence  of  m  y  consciousness  that  all 
the  sensible  people  of  my  acquaintance  are 
laughing  at  her  also,  I  am  inclined  to  watch 
her  progress  with  a  sympathy  which  includes 
the  hope  that  she  v/ill  work  out  of  her  pres 
ent  state  of  lunacy  into  a  more  practical 


A  PHILOSOPHER  151 

field,  rather  than  that  she  will  relapse  into 
the  stereotyped  woman  whom  we  all  know. 
When,  however,  Josephine  asked  me  the  other 
day  to  specify  the  field,  I  was  obliged  to 
admit  that  my  ideas  were  a  trifle  hazy.  My 
state  of  mind  doubtless  proceeds  from  a  rooted 
conviction  that  the  emancipation  of  woman 
has  only  just  begun,  and  a  certain  sympa 
thetic  curiosity  with  her  each  and  every  effort 
to  advance.  To  realize  her  progress,  I  have 
only  to  glance  up  at  my  ancestor  with  the 
mended  eye  and  consider  what  a  doll  and  a 
toy  she  was  to  him.  Then  I  look  at  my  wife, 
who  was  brought  up  on  the  old  system,  and 
say  to  myself  that,  unless,  indeed,  man  is  to 
be  utterly  snuffed  out  and  extinguished,  there 
are  certain  feminine  characteristics  in  the 
preservation  of  which  he  is  deeply  interested, 
even  when,  like  myself,  he  is  at  heart  an 
aider  and  abettor  of  emancipation.  No  more 
gingerbread  education,  no  more  treatment  as 
dolls  and  nincompoops,  no  more  discrimina 
tion  between  one  sex  and  the  other  as  to 
knowledge  of  this  world's  wickedness,  no 
more  curtailment  of  personal  liberty  on  the 
score  of  that  bugaboo,  propriety — all  these,  if 
you  like,  ladies  ;  but  we  men,  we  fathers  and 


152  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

philosophers,  ask  that  you  retain,  for  our 
sakes,  beauty  of  face  and  form,  beauty  of 
raiment,  low,  modulated  voices,  and  a  grace 
ful  carriage,  faith,  hope,  and  charity,  even 
though  you  continue  to  reveal  these  last- 
named  as  at  present  with  sweet,  illogical  in 
consequence.  More  than  this,  we  cannot  do 
without  the  tender  devotion,  the  unselfish 
forethought,  the  aspiring  faith,  which,  even 
though  we  seem  to  mock  and  to  be  blind, 
saves  us  from  the  world  and  from  ourselves. 
If  you  are  to  become  merely  men  in  petti 
coats,  what  will  become  of  us  ?  We  shall  go 
down,  down,  down,  like  the  leaden  plummet 
cast  into  the  depths  of  the  sea.  We  shall  be 
snuffed  out  and  extinguished  in  sober  truth. 
Hence,  certain  that  the  work  of  emancipa 
tion  is  to  continue,  my  philosophical  glance 
follows  fondly  and  almost  proudly  the  course 
of  my  second  daughter,  who  is  making  a  fool 
of  herself  at  the  moment  by  practising  Chris 
tian  Science,  because  she  has  beauty  and 
grace  and  a  knowledge  of  the  value  of  colors, 
purity  and  tenderness  and  aspiring  faith,  as 
her  mother  had  before  her,  while  at  the  same 
time  she  has  forsaken  the  beaten  path  of  con 
vention  and  turned  her  brow  to  the  morning. 


A  PHILOSOPHER  153 

All  of  which,  Josephine  informs  me,  is  charm 
ing  reasoning,  provided  Winona  does  not  fall 
in  love  with  somebody.  I  do  not  understand 
the  precise  logic  of  this  criticism ;  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  Josephine  is  very  apt  to  know 
what  she  is  talking  about. 


VIII 

1CAME  home  one  afternoon  with  a  puck 
ered  brow. 

"  Has  the  Supreme  Court  decided  another 
case  against  you  ?  "  asked  Josephine,  with 
solicitude. 

I  shook  my  head,  and  answered  wearily : 
"  Worse  than  that." 

My  wife  regarded  me  in  anxious  silence, 
while  manifestly  she  was  cudgelling  her 
brains  to  divine  what  could  have  happened. 
As  she  told  me  afterward,  she  imagined,  from 
my  doleful  air,  that  I  must  at  least  have  a 
seed  in  my  little  sac. 

"  They  have  asked  me  to  run  for  Con 
gress  in  this  district,"  I  finally  vouchsafed  to 
state. 

Josephine  dropped  her  fancy-work  and  sat 
upright  with  an  air  of  satisfaction  which  was 
wholly  out  of  keeping  with  my  own  dejected 
mien. 


OPINIONS  OF  A  PHILOSOPHER      155 

"EeaUy,  Fred!  Who  has  asked  you? 
The  Governor  ?  " 

"  The  Governor  does  not  usually  go  round 
on  his  bended  knees  asking  candidates  to  run 
for  Congress,"  I  answered,  with  mild  sar 
casm. 

"  Well,  the  Mayor  then  ?  " 

I  have  labored  for  years  to  make  plain  to 
Josephine  the  ramifications  of  our  National, 
State,  and  Municipal  Government ;  but  just 
as  I  am  beginning  to  think  that  she  under 
stands  the  matter  tolerably  well,  she  is  sure 
to  break  out  in  some  such  hopeless  fashion  as 
this,  which  shows  that  her  conceptions  are 
still  crookeder  than  a  ram's  horn.  And  the 
strangest  part  is  that  she  can  tell  you  all 
about  the  English  Parliament  and  Home 
Rule,  and  whether  any  given  statesman  is  a 
Liberal  or  a  Liberal  Unionist,  and  about  M. 
Clemenceau  and  the  relative  strength  of  the 
Bonapartists  and  Orleans  factions.  But  when 
it  comes  to  distinguishing  clearly  between 
an  Alderman  and  a  State  Senator,  or  a 
Member  of  Congress  and  a  Member  of  the 
Legislature,  she  is  apt  to  get  exasperatingly 
muddled.  I  asked  her  once,  in  my  most 
impressive  manner,  why  it  was  that  she 


156  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

did  not  take  a  more  vital  interest  in  the 
politics  of  her  native  country,  and  after  re 
flecting  a  moment,  she  told  me  that  she 
thought  it  must  be  because  they  were  so 
stupid.  On  the  other  hand,  with  apparent 
inconsistency,  she  has  many  times  expressed 
the  hope  that  I  would  some  day  be  conspicu 
ously  connected  with  them.  I  have  been 
conscious  for  some  time  that  it  would  suit 
her  admirably  to  have  me  round  off  my  pro 
fessional  career  as  Speaker  of  the  National 
House  of  Eepresentatives  or  Minister  to  the 
Court  of  St.  James. 

"  Josephine,"  I  said,  in  a  tone  of  despair, 
"  have  I  not  explained  to  you  time  and  time 
again  that  Members  of  Congress  are  the  Eep 
resentatives  from  the  several  States  who  are 
sent  to  Washington  ?  How  could  the  Gov 
ernor,  who  is  a  State  officer,  or  the  Mayor, 
who  is  a  municipal  officer,  have  anything  to 
do  with  the  nomination  of  a  Member  of  the 
National  House  of  Representatives?  Only 
think,  dear,  what  you  are  saying." 

Probably  Josephine  would  have  evinced 
more  contrition  in  tribute  to  this  harangue 
had  not  her  ears  been  fascinated  by  my  ref 
erence  to  the  Capital  of  our  country. 


A  PHILOSOPHER  157 

"  It  tvas  stupid  of  me,  Fred.  Do  you  mean 
to  tell  me,  dear,  they  are  going  to  send  you 
to  Washington?  That  would  be  perfectly 
delightful." 

"  I  merely  have  been  asked  to  accept  the 
nomination  for  Congress  in  the  Fourth  Dis 
trict,"  I  answered,  dryly. 

"  And  what  did  you  tell  them  ?  " 

"  I  said  I  would  think  it  over." 

"  You  must  accept.  Of  course  you  will  ac 
cept  ?  It  would  be  splendid,  Fred.  I  would 
a  great  deal  rather  have  you  in  Congress  than 
go  on  our  trip  to  Japan.  I  have  often 
thought  I  should  like  to  pass  a  winter  in 
Washington." 

By  dint  of  economy  and  some  shrewd  in 
vestments  I  had  managed  to  save  up  a  vaca 
tion  fund  of  more  than  normal  size,  by  means 
of  which  Josephine  and  I  were  proposing  to 
enjoy  a  jaunt  to  Japan.  We  had  been  look 
ing  forward  to  this  excursion,  which  I  felt 
that  we  had  fairly  earned  by  strict  devotion 
to  home  and  business  ties  for  a  long  period 
of  years. 

"  The  district  is  hopelessly  Republican,  in 
the  first  place,  my  dear,  and  I,  as  you  know, 
am  a  Democrat." 


158  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

Josephine  looked  grave  for  a  moment. 
"  But  a  great  many  Kepublicans  would  vote 
for  you,  Fred.  Oh,  I  am  sure  they  would  !  " 
she  added,  eagerly,  impressed  by  the  plau 
sibility  of  the  idea.  "Harry  Bolles  is  a 
Republican,  and  I  am  certain  he  would  vote 
for  you ;  so  would  Dr.  Meredith  and  Sam 
Bangs." 

"They  are  three  out  of  several  thousand 
voters  in  the  district,  Josephine.  You  argue 
like  the  committee  which  waited  upon  me." 

"They  said  a  great  many  Republicans 
would  vote  for  you,  didn't  they?  And  they 
thought  you  would  be  elected  ?  " 

"  They  were  kind  enough  to  state  that  I 
had  a  good  fighting  chance  ;  which  means,  my 
dear,  that  I  haven't  the  ghost  of  a  show." 

Josephine  regarded  me  a  moment  distrust 
fully.  "  It  doesn't  seem  to  me  there  is  any 
use  in  being  too  modest  about  such  a  matter 
as  this,  Fred.  Somebody  has  to  be  elected, 
and  it  might  as  well  be  you  as  anybody.  I 
have  always  hoped  you  would  go  into  poli 
tics,  you  know.  If  they  hadn't  wanted  you 
they  wouldn't  have  asked  you." 

"  The  only  certain  thing  about  it  is,  that, 
if  they  had  supposed  I  could  possibly  be 


A  PHILOSOPHER  159 

elected,  they  wouldn't  have  offered  me  the 
nomination." 

"  What  do  you  mean,  Fred  ?  I  call  that 
mock  modesty,  darling." 

I  did  not  consider  that  I  was  called  upon  to 
unfold  more  particularly  to  my  wife  the  cyni 
cal  estimate  of  the  case  which  I  entertained 
in  my  secret  soul,  especially  in  view  of  the 
fact  that  the  committee  which  had  waited 
upon  me  comprised  not  merely  politicians, 
but  some  of  our  best  citizens.  Although  a 
man  who  is  invited  to  run  for  Congress  in  a 
district  hopelessly  hostile  is  likely  to  cherish 
secret  suspicions  as  to  the  sincerity  of  those 
who  offer  him  the  nomination,  the  bait  of 
self-sacrifice  for  the  public  good  has  lured 
many  a  cleverer  man  than  I  to  his  destruc 
tion.  Besides,  a  fighting  chance  invariably 
seems  more  prodigious  to  the  one  who  is  said 
to  have  it,  than  to  anyone  else.  There  were 
certainly  weak  joints  in  the  armor  (an  anal 
ogy  supplied  me  by  the  committee)  of  my 
opponent,  who  was  a  dyed-in-the-wool  poli 
tician,  and  indisputably  I  had  a  great  many 
friends.  Could  I  afford  to  disregard  the  pite 
ous,  eloquent  argument  of  the  spokesman, 
Honorable  David  Flint,  that  the  sacred  cause 


160  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

of  Reform  demanded  me  as  its  champion,  and 
that  victory  was  possible  only  under  my  ban 
ner?  I  had  promised  to  think  it  over,  which 
was  a  coy  way  of  stating  that  I  would  accept. 
Having  made  up  rny  mind  to  run,  I  was 
obliged  to  tell  Josephine  that  this  would 
mean  good-by  for  many  a  long  and  weary 
month  to  our  jaunt. 

"  If  you're  elected,  Fred,  I  shall  be  only 
too  glad  to  postpone  it.  And  if  by  any 
chance  you  don't  get  in,  we'll  forget  all  about 
it  in  dear  Japan." 

"  You  do  not  quite  understand  the  situa 
tion,  pet.  We  stay  at  home  in  any  case, 
election  or  no  election.  The  expenses  will 
eat  up  my  savings  for  a  rainy  day  in  Japan. 
I  shall  have  to  contribute  handsomely  to 
everybody  and  everything.  It's  an  outrage, 
but  one  of  the  painful  results  of  having  great 
ness  thrust  upon  one." 

Thereupon  Josephine  flung  her  arms 
around  my  neck  and  informed  me  that  I  was 
not  only  a  dear,  noble  hero,  but  that  Japan 
or  no  Japan,  she  would  not  begrudge  one 
copper  of  any  sum  I  might  be  obliged  to 
spend  in  order  to  defeat  that  odious  wretch, 
Mr.  Daniel  Spinney.  A  few  days  later,  after 


A  PHILOSOPHER  161 

my  letter  of  acceptance  was  published,  she 
said  that  she  did  not  see  how  anyone  who 
had  the  least  respect  for  the  sacred  right  of 
suffrage  could  hesitate  between  us. 

"  Spinney  is  not  such  a  bad  fellow  at  bot 
tom,"  I  replied,  albeit  touched  by  the  warm 
partisanship  of  my  wife. 

"  Didn't  I  read  in  the  newspaper  this 
morning  that  he  is  a  notorious  spoilsman  ?  " 

"Yery  likely,  dear.  Spinney  has  always 
called  Civil  Service  Reform  a  humbug." 

"And  he  is  all  wrong  on  the  tariff." 

"  We  think  so." 

"  Well,  then,  how  can  you  say  that  he  isn't 
a  bad  fellow  at  bottom  ?  " 

"  I  mean,  Josephine,  that  apart  from  poli 
tics  he  is  a  very  decent  sort  of  person.  I 
couldn't  help  thinking  while  I  was  chatting 
with  him  yesterday  that  there  was  something 
quite  attractive  about  him.  He  isn't  exactly 
the  kind  of  man  I  should  hold  up  as  a  model 
to  my  sons,  but,  as  I  said  before,  he  is  by  no 
means  a  bad  fellow." 

Josephine  had  been  looking  at  me  aghast 
ever  since  the  opening  sentence  of  this  speech. 
"You  don't  mean  to  tell  me,  Fred,  that  you 
stopped  and  chatted  with  that  wretch  ?  " 
11 


162  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

"  Indeed  I  do.  We  happened  to  meet, 
and  so  we  hobnobbed  for  five  minutes  on  the 
street  corner  and  drew  each  other  out  in  the 
friendliest  sort  of  fashion  as  to  our  mutual 
prospects.  He  says  he  has  a  walk-over,  and 
I  told  him  that  he  isn't  in  it." 

"  I'm  glad  you  showed  a  little  spirit,  any 
how." 

"What  would  you  have  had  me  do? 
Make  a  fell  assault  upon  his  hair  and  eye 
balls  ?  As  it  was,  I  perpetrated  a  deliberate 
falsehood  in  the  good  cause.  He  knows  that 
I  know  I  am  beaten  from  the  start." 

"Nonsense,"  said  Josephine.  "You  pro 
voke  me,  Fred,  when  you  talk  in  that  fash 
ion.  What  was  the  use  of  accepting  if  you 
didn't  intend  to  win  if  you  could  ?  " 

"So  I  do  intend,  but  I  can't." 

"  You  can't  certainly  if  you  hobnob  with 
the  rival  candidate  and  call  him  a  good  fel 
low." 

"You  ought  to  have  been  a  politician,  Jo 
sephine." 

"No,  I'm  only  crazy  to  have  you  win, 
Fred,  and  I'm  convinced  you  can  win  if  you 
only  think  so  yourself  and  pitch  in  as  if  you 
thought  so.  I  dare  say  Mr.  Spinney  may  be 


A  PHILOSOPHER  163 

well  enough  apart  from  politics,  but  it  is  poli 
tics  we  are  interested  in  at  present,  and  it 
seems  to  me  it  is  your  duty  to  hate  him — 
until  the  election  is  over,  anyway.  If  you 
defeat  him,  you  may  ask  him  to  dinner,  if 
you  like." 

Her  eyes  sparkled  like  diamonds,  and 
there  was  a  dangerous  look  in  them  which 
would  have  boded  ill  for  Mr.  Spinney  or 
any  other  Republican  had  he  happened  to 
thrust  his  head  inside  our  doors  just  then. 
As  for  me,  I  felt  a  little  sheepish  at  my  lack 
of  courage,  I  must  confess,  and  I  cried  with 
genuine  ardor  :  "  Hurrah  for  Reform  !  You're 
right,  my  dear,"  I  added,  "  I  must  pitch  in. 
I  haven't  been  quite  so  pusillanimous,  how 
ever,  as  it  would  seem,  for  I  have  got  Nick 
Long  to  superintend  my  campaign." 

You  may  remember  that  Nicholas  Long, 
or  Nick  Long,  as  we  always  speak  of  him,  has 
never  stood  high  in  Josephine's  good  graces 
on  account  of  his  unorthodox  habits  regard 
ing  church-going.  He  has  an  unpleasant 
way  of  encountering  us  on  our  way  to  the 
sanctuary  in  the  toggery  of  a  man  who  is 
going  to  take  a  day  off  in  the  country.  He 
has,  however,  a  cool,  analytical  mind,  and  his 


164  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

name  has  been  associated  for  some  years 
with  reform  politics.  In  obtaining  his  ser 
vices  as  a  manager  I  felt  that  I  had  done  well 
and  wisely.  Josephine  looked  a  little  sober, 
as  though  she  was  not  altogether  gratified  at 
my  selection,  but  realizing,  very  likely  on 
second  thought,  that  the  children's  habits 
were  formed,  she  contented  herself  by  re- 
marking : 

"  I  shall  keep  my  eye  upon  him  and  make 
sure  that  he  doesn't  get  you  into  any  mis 
chief." 

"  You  seem  to  forget,"  I  said,  "  that  he  is 
a  leading  reformer." 

Josephine  smiled  incredulously.  "  Fred," 
she  continued  presently,  with  a  pensive  air, 
"  I  wish  it  were  the  custom  here,  as  it  is  in 
England,  for  a  candidate's  wife  to  go  about 
and  buttonhole  people  and  beg  votes  arid  kiss 
babies  for  him,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing. 
I'm  not  so  young  as  I  was,  I  know,  but  I 
dare  say  I  should  appear  quite  as  well  as 
Mrs.  Daniel  Spinney,  whoever  she  may  be.  I 
really  think  I  could  make  a  fairly  respectable 
speech  just  on  the  strength  of  my  conjugal 
devotion  and  righteous  indignation  against 
that  villain  of  a  man.  '  Ahem :  Fellow  Dem- 


A  PHILOSOPHER  165 

ocrats,  I  beseech  you  in  the  name  of  common 
sense  and  decency,  in  the  name  of  the  God 
dess  of  Liberty,  and  of  good  government  and 
order,  and  as  you  love  your  cradles  and  your 
firesides,  not  to  vote  for  that  dyed-in-the- 
wool  Republican  and  spoilsman,  Daniel  Spin 
ney,  but  to  vote  early  and  often  for  that  tal 
ented,  noble,  self-sacrificing,  upright  citizen 
and  Democrat,  Frederick '  " 

"  E  pluribus  unum  !  Let  her  go,  Galla 
gher  !  Erin  go  bragh !  rah !  rah !  rah !  Har 
vard  ! "  I  cried,  as  I  seized  the  lovely  orator 
in  my  arms  and  hugged  her  to  my  breast, 
thereby,  to  adopt  her  own  words,  squeezing 
out  of  her  the  little  breath  which  she  had 
left.  "Bravo,  Josephine!  If  you  were  to 
take  the  stump  it  would  be  I  and  not  Mr. 
Spinney  who  would  have  a  walk- over." 

"  At  any  rate,  Fred,"  she  continued,  after 
she  had  regained  her  breath  and  recomposed 
her  ruffled  hair,  "  I  can  put  in  a  word  to  help 
you  here  and  there  among  our  friends.  It 
was  on  the  tip  of  my  tongue  yesterday  to  call 
Rev.  Bradley  Mason's  attention  to  the  fact 
that  you  were  a  candidate,  in  the  hope  that 
he  might  make  just  a  slight  allusion  to  it 
from  the  pulpit.  Not  directly  by  name,  of 


166  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

course ;  lie  couldn't  do  that  very  well ;  but 
he  might  speak  of  the  importance  of  aiding 
those  who  were  battling  for  the  noble  cause 
of  pure  government,  so  that  people  could 
guess  what  he  meant.  I  didn't  do  it,"  she 
added,  a  little  ruefully,  "because  I  was  afraid 
you  might  possibly  not  like  it,  and  there  was 
plenty  of  time  in  which  to  give  him  the 
hint." 

"  Thank  goodness  you  didn't  say  a  word 
on  the  subject,"  I  answered.  "It  wouldn't 
have  done  at  all." 

For  the  next  six  weeks  our  house  was  a 
veritable  bureau  of  political  activity.  Al 
though  Josephine  lived  up  to  her  threat  of 
keeping  an  eye  on  Nicholas  Long,  she  ad 
mitted  before  many  days  had  passed  that  he 
was  what  my  boys  call  a  thorough-going 
hustler,  and  that  he  was  determined  to  leave 
no  portion  of  my  Congressional  acreage  un 
sown  with  Democratic  seed.  This  farming 
metaphor  was  borrowed  from  Nick,  who  had 
many  others  at  his  command  suited  to  the 
various  classes  of  constituents  he  wished  to 
reach.  His  brain  fairly  buzzed  with  fertile 
expedients  devised  to  catch  this  and  that 
portion  of  the  popular  vote.  He  was  a  great 


A  PHILOSOPHER  167 

believer  in  documents.  As  lie  expressed  it, 
the  territory  must  be  plastered  with  statistics 
and  other  printed  matter,  which  were  much 
more  serviceable  nowadays  than  in  the  past. 
He  said  that  formerly  the  average  voter  flung 
everything  into  the  waste-basket  and  went  to 
the  polls  simply  on  the  strength  of  party 
prejudice  fortified  by  the  glamour  of  a  torch 
light  procession,  but  that  now  he  read  and 
thought,  and  refused  to  support  the  party 
candidate  merely  because  he  was  the  party 
candidate.  He  deluged  the  community  with 
copies  of  my  letter  of  acceptance,  and  three 
days  later  overwhelmed  the  postal  service 
with  a  batch  of  circulars  embodying  a  short, 
pithy  description  of  my  personal  virtues  and 
talents,  interwoven  with  sound  doctrine.  Al 
though  he  confided  to  me  that  torchlight  or 
ganizations  were  moribund  factors  in  political 
warfare,  he  advised  me  to  supply  uniforms 
and  torches,  and  a  promise  of  abundant 
cigars,  ice-cream,  and  ginger-beer  for  the 
cementation  of  a  band  of  youthful  warriors 
eager  to  call  themselves  the  "Fourth  District 
Keform  Cadets."  "  There  is  not  more  than 
one  voter  in  twenty  among  them,"  said  Nick, 
"  but  it  will  please  their  fathers,  and  do  no 


168  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

harm  in  any  event,  especially  as  your  wife 
and  I  have  devised  a  costume  for  them  that 
will  drive  the  Spinney  Guards  under  cover 
with  jealousy." 

The  costume  in  question  was  a  pattern  of 
garish  ingenuity :  white  bearskin  caps  with 
red,  white,  and  blue  pompons  ;  bright  blue 
blouses  dashed  with  white,  and  white  leather 
belts,  and  red  zouave  knickerbockers.  Their 
torches  were  encased  in  fantastic  glass  lan 
terns  alternately  red,  white,  and  blue.  On 
the  occasion  of  their  first  parade,  when  they 
drew  up  before  the  house  to  receive  their 
transparency,  adorned  on  one  side  with  a  vil 
lainous  portrait  of  myself  superscribed  by  the 
motto,  "  Our  Fathers  Fought  For  Freedom, 
We  Are  Fighting  For  The  Eight,"  and  on 
the  other  a  cut  depicting  the  rival  candidate 
up  to  his  armpits  in  the  bog  of  Civil  Service 
Reform,  described  as  "  Spinney's  Walk- 
Over  "  (a  happy  blending,  as  Nick  called  it, 
of  serious  principle  and  humorous  sugges 
tion),  I  appeared  on  the  door-steps  and  de 
livered  a  few  halting  sentences  of  gratitude 
and  augury  for  success,  which  were  received 
with  loud  plaudits  and  the  rattle  of  the  drum 
corps.  Thereupon  I  invited  the  battalion  to 


A   PHILOSOPHER 


169 


enter  and  partake  of  a  little  simple  hospi 
tality,  which  they  hastened  to  do  to  the  num 
ber  of  two  hundred,  including  a  dozen  ward 
heelers  in  citizens'  raiment,  and  three  or  four 


nondescripts  whom  nobody  knew,  but  whom 
Nick  said  it  would  be  impolitic  to  offend  by 
exclusion.  A  hearty  supper  was  ready  for 
them  in  the  dining-room,  presided  over  by 
Josephine  and  her  daughters,  whose  presence 
seemed  at  first  to  abash  my  warriors  of  the 


170  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

torch.  But  only  for  a  few  moments.  Real 
izing  presently  that  these  Goddesses  had 
apparently  but  one  aim  in  life,  to  wit,  to  help 
them  to  salad,  oysters,  and  ice-cream,  diffi 
dence  disappeared  like  fog  before  the  morn 
ing  sun,  and  with  it  the  viands  down  the 
throats  of  iny  red,  white,  and  blue  support 
ers.  In  the  liquid  line  Josephine  gave  a 
choice  of  hot  coffee  and  chocolate,  thereby 
joining  issue  for  the  first  time  with  my  man 
ager  on  the  subject  of  methods.  Nick  was 
in  favor  of  champagne,  on  the  score  that  the 
Spinney  Guards  had  been  regaled  with  beer 
and  sherry,  but  my  darling  declared  that  even 
if  it  were  the  turning-point  of  the  election,  she 
would  not  consent  to  win  votes  by  playing 
Hebe  to  beardless  youths.  A  political  aspi 
rant  who  is  forced  to  decide  between  his 
manager  and  his  wife  has  need  of  all  the  phi 
losophy  at  his  command. 

To  atone  for  this  obduracy,  Josephine  had 
a  pleasant  little  surprise  ready  in  the  shape 
of  a  basket  of  silken  badges  emblematic 
chiefly  of  myself,  and  more  remotely  of  the 
Presidential  candidate  and  our  party  princi 
ples.  She  and  her  daughters,  despite  my 
blushes,  fastened  these  one  by  one  to  the  blue 


A  PHILOSOPHER 


171 


blouses  of  the  members  of  the  Fourth  District 
Reform  Cadets  after  everything  to  eat  and 
drink  in  the  house  had  vanished.  Not  only 
then,  but  henceforth  until  the  end  of  the 
campaign,  it  was  embarrassing  to  me  to  note 
how  subordinate  a  position  every  other  can 
didate  held  in  Jose 
phine's  regard.  One 
would  have  supposed 
that  I  was  the  party 
nominee  for  the  chief 
magistracy  of  the  na 
tion,  instead  of  the 
leader  of  a  forlorn  con 
test  for  a  congression 
al  seat  in  a  hopeless 
ly  Republican  district. 
On  the  occasion  of  the 
torchlight  parade  two 

miles  long,  whereby  the  enemy  sought  to 
carry  the  city  by  storm,  and  which  passed 
close  to  our  front  door,  our  house  was  as 
dark  as  Erebus.  Josephine  insisted  even 
that  the  lights  in  the  front  hall  and  in  the 
basement  should  be  extinguished,  and  she 
drew  the  drawing-room  curtains  over  the 
window-shades  so  that  we  need  not  seem  to 


THE  OPINIONS  OF 


furnish  our  foes  with  one  pale  ray  of  comfort. 
Induced  by  curiosity  to  peep  out  at  the  pass 
ing  show,  she  limited  her  strictures  to  scorn 
ful  but  tranquil  denunciation  of  the  campaign 
rhetoric  blazoned  on  the 
transparencies,  until  the 
Spinney  Guards  arrived, 
headed  by  a  magnificent 
mulatto  bearing  a  delinea 
tion  of  the  Eeform  Candi 
date  submerged  in  a  huge 
soup-tureen  with  an  appro 
priate  tag  '  beneath.  For 
an  instant  she  stared,  then 
she  gasped  as  though  some 
one  had  struck  her,  and  she 
fiercely  started  to  raise  the 


,  «  what  are  you  trying  to 

do,  Josephine  ?  " 
"  Let  me  go,  Fred.     I  will,  I  will.     How 
dare  they?" 

"Pooh,  dear!  All  is  fair  in  politics.  It's 
no  worse  than  the  Swamp  of  Civil  Service 
Reform,"  I  said,  as  I  tore  away  her  vindic 
tive  grasp  from  the  window  which  she  had 
succeeded  in  opening  a  foot  or  two,  and  shut 
it  hastily. 


A  PHILOSOPHER  173 

"How  dare  they?  You  had  no  right  to 
prevent  me  from  hissing,  Fred.  I  should  like 
to  fling  something  at  them  too.  It's  an  out 
rage  making  you  look  like  that,  and — and  in 
the  soup,  too." 

Not  all  the  enthusiasm  generated  by  our 
rival  procession,  which  took  place  forty-eight 
hours  later,  nor  indeed  the  long  flattering  list 
of  my  supporters  published  by  Nick  Long  in 
the  newspapers  for  two  days  prior  to  elec 
tion  day,  sufficed  entirely  to  obliterate  from 
Josephine's  soul  the  bitterness  of  this  insult. 
As  she  expressed  it,  was  it  not  cruel  to  flaunt 
such  a  thing  in  the  faces  of  children  who 
had  been  used  to  think  of  their  father  as  the 
most  dignified  of  men,  one  with  whose  per 
sonality  no  one  would  dare  to  tamper  or 
trifle  ?  It  nerved  her,  however,  to  more  des 
perate  efforts  in  my  behalf.  She  ventured 
even  on  holding  up  our  beloved  pastor,  the 
Rev.  Bradley  Mason,  in  the  street,  and  cap 
turing  his  signature  to  the  list  of  leading  citi 
zens  who  supported  me.  This  ought,  she  de 
clared,  to  outweigh  sixty  soup-tureens. 

Before  the  votes  were  counted  I  knew  well 
enough  that  I  had  been  defeated,  but  for 
Josephine's  dear  sake  I  allowed  her  to  pre- 


174  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

pare  a  victor's  banquet,  on  the  assumption 
that  my  friends  would  be  pouring  in  upon 
me  with  congratulations.  It  Avas  she  who 
drove  me  from  my  evening  paper,  to  which  I 
was  settling  down  like  a  philosopher  after 
dinner,  to  go  to  my  headquarters  and  ascer 
tain  the  result.  She  was  sure  I  was  elected. 
If  not  (and  here  her  voice  melted)  the  people 
were  not  fit  to  have  such  a  pearl  offered  to 
them.  I  went,  and  it  was  half-past  ten  when 
I  returned.  She  heard  my  step,  and  rushed 
down  to  meet  me  at  the  front  door.  I  was 
calm  and  smiling. 

"  Defeated  by  one  hundred  and  fourteen 
votes,  dear.  A  close  fight,  wasn't  it  ?  " 

"Ah,  Fred,  defeated!  You  poor,  poor 
boy." 

"  I  can  stand  it  if  you  can,  Josephine,"  I 
answered,  as  with  my  arm  wound  around  her 
waist  I  led  her  into  the  dining-room,  where 
the  stalled  ox  and  truffled  turkey  and  a  glit 
tering  array  of  glass  confronted  us. 

"  It  was  that  horrid  soup -tureen  did  it,  I 
am  convinced,"  she  murmured,  sitting  down 
beside  me  on  the  sofa. 

"  Nonsense,  dear.  Everyone  says  I  got  a 
wonderful  vote  against  such  odds.  They  are 


A  PHILOSOPHER  175 

talking  about  it  downtown  as  though  I  had 
won  a  victory.  Nick  is  called  a  great  man 
ager." 

"  But  that  Spinney  is  elected  all  the  same," 
she  said,  dejectedly. 

"  Yes,  he  is,  Josephine.  "We  can't  escape 
from  that.  I  tell  you  what,  I'm  going  to  have 
a  glass  of  champagne,"  I  said,  entering  the 
china  closet  and  taking  possession  of  one 
of  the  bottles  which  had  been  packed  in  ice 
for  the  refreshment  of  my  friends.  I  filled  a 
glass  for  each  of  us  and  drained  mine  to  the 
philosophical  toast,  "Here's  to  peace  and  a 
quiet  life,  my  dear." 

"It  would  have  been  very  nice  to  go  to 
"Washington,"  said  Josephine,  between  her 
sips.  "  It  might  have  been  a  stepping-stone 
to  higher  things.  You  know  you  would  be 
pleased  to  be  sent  abroad  as  a  foreign  minis 
ter.  It  would  have  just  suited  you,  Fred." 

"  It  may  be  that  the  President,  when  he 
hears  of  the  gallant  fight  I  made,  will  reward 
me  with  something  in  that  line,"  I  answered, 
with  a  twinkle  in  my  eye.  "By  the  way, 
what  egotists  we  are !  I  did  not  tell  you,  and 
you  did  not  inquire,  who  had  been  elected 
President.  We  have  won  a  glorious  victory." 


17G  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

11  I'm  very  glad,  I'm  sure,"  said  Josephine, 
in  a  tone  which  was  scandalously  absent- 
minded  considering  the  importance  of  the  in 
formation.  After  a  moment  she  remarked, 
coyly :  "I  should  really  think,  Fred,  there 
might  be  a  chance  of  his  giving  you  some 
thing  when  he  hears." 

"Not  the  slightest,  you  dear  woman.  I 
was  only  teasing  yon.  I  am  a  very  humble 
figure  in  the  politics  of  the  country,  I  assure 
you,  and  even  if  the  President  is  aware  of  my 
existence  when  he  enters  office,  it  will  never 
occur  to  him  to  pick  me  out  for  preferment. 
Besides,  I  don't  wish  anything.  I  am  per 
fectly  content  to  sink  back  into  the  obscurity 
from  which  I  was  lured  by  the  call  of  duty. 
It  would  have  tickled  my  pride  a  little  to  de 
feat  Spinney,  but  I  am  inclined  to  think 
I  should  have  found  it  rather  a  bore  to  be 
only  one  Congressman  among  so  many." 

"Just  think  of  it,  one  hundred  and  fifteen 
more  votes  would  have  given  you  the  elec 
tion.  It  seems  hard  to  have  missed  it  by  so 
little.  You  mustn't  think  me  a  goose  about 
you,  Fred,"  she  added,  after  a  thoughtful 
pause.  I  don't  usually  praise  you  to  your 
face  and  make  an  undue  fuss  about  you,  do  I 


A  PHILOSOPHER  177 

dear  ?  I  think  I  am  disposed  to  be  critical 
of  you  rather  than  otherwise.  But  you  are 
so  much  superior  to  the  men  they  generally 
put  up,  that  I'm  unable  to  reconcile  myself 
to  the  idea  that  you're  not  to  be  anything 
distinguished  after  all.  Of  course  I  didn't 
really  expect  that  you  were  going  to  be  very 
great ;  and  yet  in  politics  one  cannot  always 
tell.  Men  no  more  remarkable  than  you  have 
been  elected  President ;  though  I'm  not  at  all 
sure  that  I  should  have  cared  to  have  you  in 
the  White  House." 

"Yet  you  will  not  cease  to  love  me  now 
that  I  am  doomed  to  be  only  a  poor  private 
citizen  for  the  rest  of  my  days  ?  "  I  asked, 
fondly,  as  my  arm  stole  around  her  waist, 
which,  though  no  longer  wisp-like  as  of  yore, 
is  shapely  still.  "  Poor,  too,  in  every  sense," 
I  added,  unpleasantly  reminded  by  the  press 
ure  of  the  check-book  in  my  coat-pocket  of 
my  sadly  diminished  bank  account. 

"  I  am  afraid  I  should  continue  to  love  you, 
Fred,  even  if  you  were  bad — a  Daniel  Spin 
ney  or  a  Nicholas  Long,  for  example,"  she 
answered,  imprinting  a  kiss  upon  my  cheek. 
"  But  you  are  an  angel,  dear." 

It  was  worth  being  defeated  for  Congress 
12 


178  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

in  order  to  learn  how  much  my  wife  appreci 
ated  me,  and  also  to  learn  to  appreciate  her 
more  thoroughly,  philosophical  deductions 
which  I  whispered  in  her  ear  with  appro 
priate  circumlocution.  "  But,  Josephine,"  I 
added,  "  why  do  you  include  Spinney  and 
Nick  Long  in  the  same  category  of  wicked 
ness  ?  " 

"Because  they  are  both  wicked." 
"  But  Nick  is  a  reformer,  my  dear." 
"  Hasn't  he  nearly  ruined  you  ?  " 
"  I  had  to  hand  over  a  great  deal  of  money 
to  him,  certainly,"  I  answered,  ruefully. 
"  What  did  he  spend  it  for  ?  " 
"  I  didn't  ask  him  for  the  details,  but  he 
always  said  he  needed  it  for  printing,  dear. 
You  know  there  was  a  great  deal  of  printing 
done,"  I  hastened  to  add,  feeling  a  little  nerv 
ous  under  the  stress  of   cross-examination. 
"Then    there   were    the   uniforms    and  the 
torches  and  the  supper  for  the  cadets." 

"  I  know  what  they  cost  exactly.  Fred,  what 
do  you  suppose  he  could  have  used  all  that 
money  for  ?  " 

"  Printing,  I  have  told  you,  Josephine. 
There  are  all  sorts  of  expenses  in  a  campaign 
of  this  sort,  the  details  of  which  one  has  to 


A  PHILOSOPHER  179 

leave  to  one's  manager.  I  have  implicit  con 
fidence  in  Nick's  good  judgment,"  I  contin 
ued,  a  trifle  austerely.  To  tell  the  truth,  I 
had  been  wondering  myself  where  all  the 
money  had  gone  to.  Josephine  was  thought 
ful  for  several  minutes,  then  she  said  :  "  Do 
you  know,  Fred,  I  have  a  feeling  that  if  you 
had  managed  your  own  campaign  without 
the  aid  of  a  reformer  you  would  have  got  just 
as  many  votes — and — and  we  should  have 
had  money  enough  left  to  go  to  Japan." 

If  a  woman  has  a  prejudice  against  a 
man  he  might  be  spotless  as  the  Archangel 
Gabriel,  and  she  would  be  able  to  pick  a 
flaw  in  him. 


IX 

SIX  months  ago  au  astonishing  piece  of 
news  was  revealed  to  me.  Astonishing  at 
least  to  me,  though  Josephine  says  that  I  need 
not  have  been  astonished  had  I  kept  my  eyes 
open,  inasmuch  as  the  affair  was  going  on 
under  my  very  nose,  and  everybody  in  town 
except  myself  knew  how  it  was  likely  to  end. 
I  refer  to  my  daughter  Josie's  engagement. 

Yesterday  I  gave  her  away — a  euphemistic 
way  of  stating  that  she  was  torn  from  my 
arms — to  a  young  man  of  whom  I  know  next 
to  nothing,  though  I  hear  on  all  sides  that  he 
is  a  very  nice  fellow,  which  might  mean  that 
he  is  utterly  without  principle  and  an  easy 
going,  idle,  selfish  hound.  In  appearance  he 
does  not  seem  to  me  to  differ  from  nine- 
tenths  of  the  young  men  who  in  the  course 
of  the  last  five  years  have  said,  "  How  d'y 
do  ?  "  or  "  Good-by  "  to  me  (rarely  more  or 
less)  when  they  have  run  across  me  in  my 


OPINIONS  OF  A  PHILOSOPHER       181 

own  drawing-room.  My  wife  declares  that 
he  has  a  spiritual  face,  and  that  he  reminds 
her  of  me  at  the  same  age,  which  I  regard  as 
an  ingenious  attempt  to  prepossess  me  in  his 
favor.  She  has  informed  me  also  that  Josie  is 
over  head  and  ears  in  love  with  him  and  he 
with  Josie,  a  predicament  on  his  part  which 
I  am  not  surprised  at;  and  I  suppose  that 
I  am  bound  to  admit  that  my  daughter  is 
justified  in  her  infatuation  for  him,  if  he  re 
sembles  me  at  thirty. 

Plainly,  I  have  become  an  old  cynic  by  rea 
son  of  the  loss  of  my  dear  Josie.  I  realize  that 
I  have  been  like  a  bear  with  a  sore  head  ever 
since  the  ceremony.  As  for  Josephine,  she 
has  been  mooning  about  the  house  all  day  in  a 
state  of  chronic  tearfulness.  The  responsibil 
ity  of  the  bride's  appearance  and  the  wedding 
collation  kept  her  nerved  until  everything 
was  over.  Last  evening  she  collapsed  and 
fell  asleep  in  my  arms,  sobbing  like  a  child. 

His  name  is  James  Perkins.  I  have  been 
doing  my  best  for  several  months  to  call  him 
"Jim,"  as  everybody  else  does,  instead  of 
"James,"  or  "Perkins,"  and  yesterday  I  suc 
ceeded  twice  in  doing  so.  I  had  had  three 
glasses  of  champagne.  He  is  an  architect, 


182  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

and  I  understand  from  Josie  tliat  he  has  al 
ready  made  his  mark  in  the  erection  of  a 
church,  two  school-houses,  and  a  town-hall  in 
the  suburbs,  which  I  have  promised  her  to  go 
and  see.  It  seems  that  a  week  before  he  had 
the  impertinence  to  offer  himself  to  her  he  re 
ceived  word  that  his  plans  for  a  vast  railroad 
station  in  one  of  the  large  Western  cities  had 
been  accepted.  But  for  this  untoward  circum 
stance,  my  dear  Josie  would  still  be  the  light 
of  my  house,  and  I  should  not  be  gnawing  at 
my  mustache  in  the  throes  of  misanthropy. 

Jim  is  slight  and  not  very  tall,  and  he  does 
not  look  especially  strong.  They  tell  me 
that  he  has  worked  very  hard,  and  that  he 
has  won  his  way  purely  by  his  own  energy 
and  talent.  He  does  not  smoke,  which  rath 
er  prejudiced  me  against  him,  in  spite  of 
the  fact  that  I  believe  we  should  all  be  the 
healthier  if  we  did  not  use  tobacco.  This,  as 
Josephine  would  say,  only  shows  what  an  in 
consistent  creature  I  am.  And  I  a  philoso 
pher,  too  !  But  I  said  at  the  outset  that  I  was 
not  a  real  philosopher.  Josie  met  James— I 
beg  his  pardon,  Jim — at  her  coming-out 
party,  and  it  seems  that  he  fell  in  love  with 
her  at  first  sight.  If,  now,  somebody  had 


A  PHILOSOPHER  183 

fallen  in  love  at  first  sight  with  my  sister-in- 
law,  Julia,  how  much  more  satisfactory  it 
would  have  been  all  round.  But  that  is  the 
way  of  the  world  ;  Julia  was  overlooked  and 
my  girl  taken,  to  my  miserable  discomfiture. 
Jim  was  one  of  the  youths  without  fathers 
and  mothers  whom  you  see  at  every  large  en 
tertainment.  That  is  to  say,  my  wife  had 
never  heard  of  his  father  and  mother  at  the 
time  she  invited  him,  though  they  prove  to 
have  been  very  respectable  people.  Indeed, 
we  were  all  of  us  struck  by  the  dignified 
appearance  which  his  family  as  a  whole 
presented  at  the  wedding.  Alas  !  I  realize 
already  that  when  I  have  got  used  to  the 
idea  that  anybody  is  to  have  her,  I  shall  be 
thoroughly  happy  in  the  thought  that  I  have 
given  her  away  to  such  a  decent  fellow,  a  man 
with  self-respect  and  principles,  a  man  of  in 
dustry  and  capacity,  and  one,  too,  who  is 
ready  to  drink  his  glass  of  champagne  like 
the  rest  of  the  world — although  he  does  not 
smoke.  I  have  let  my  grudge  have  free  scope, 
and  all  I  have  been  able  to  rake  up  against 
him  is  that  he  shakes  his  head  when  I  offer 
him  a  pipe  or  a  cigar.  In  my  secret  soul  I 
am  egregiously  proud  of  him  already,  and  but 


184  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

for  my  wounded  sensibilities  I  could  dance 
with  joy  over  the  reflection  that  he  is  likely 
to  make  her  perfectly  happy.  And  yet  all 
this  talk  of  marrying  and  giving  in  marriage 
has  broken  my  spirit. 

"  Since  it  had  to  be  someone,"  I  said  by 
way  of  consolation  to  Josephine  when  we 
awoke  this  morning,  "  it's  extremely  fortunate 
that  she  did  not  fall  in  love  with  a  dashing 
soldier,  who  would  carry  her  off  to  a  barracks 
on  the  frontier  of  a  Sioux  reservation,  or  a 
swashing  sailor,  who  would  leave  her  at  home 
while  he  went  on  long  cruises,  or  a  splendid- 
looking  creature,  with  a  sonorous  voice,  who 
would  drink  himself  into  his  grave  or  else 
make  her  miserable  by  devoting  himself  to 
another  woman.  Some  of  the  nicest  fellows  I 
ever  knew  have  made  their  wives  thoroughly 
wretched.  When  you  think  that  there  really 
isn't  anything  very  wonderful  to  look  at 
about — er — Jim,  that  is,  anything  to  appeal 
especially  to  the  romantic  side  of  a  girl,  I 
think  it's  very  greatly  to  Josie's  credit  that 
she  should  have  chosen  him.  Many  girls 
might  have  overlooked  his  solid  attractions 
and  gone  in  for  a  Jim  dandy  of  a  chap  who 
wasn't  worth  his  salt." 


A  PHILOSOPHER  185 

My  wife  looked  a  little  blank  over  this 
philosophic  statement,  then  she  glanced  up 
at  me  with  a  roguish  smile  and  said  :  "  You 
seem  to  forget,  dear,  that  I  accepted  you." 

"  True  enough,"  I  answered,  merrily.  "  I 
dare  say  I  wasn't  a  trifle  less  commonplace- 
looking  than  son-in-law.  Besides  we  both 
have  spiritual  faces." 

"  You  should  give  me  and  Josie  credit  for 
being  able  to  see  below  the  surface,"  said  my 
darling,  fondly.  "  A  soldier  or  a  sailor,  or  a 
splendid-looking  creature  such  as  you  de 
scribe,  is  delightful  at  a  party ;  but  gold  but 
tons,  or  even  a  very  handsome  mustache, 
don't  go  far  nowadays  toward  blinding  a  sen 
sible  girl  to  the  fact  that  she  will  have  to  pass 
all  her  days  with  the  man  she  chooses.  You 
know,  dear,  that  you  and  I  have  never  believed 
that  marriage  is  a  lottery.  We  were  sure  of 
each  other  beforehand.  So  are  Josie  and 
Jim." 

"  Thank  God  that  it  is  so ;  and  may  he, 
darling,  grant  them  such  happiness  as  he  has 
given  us." 

"  Amen !  And,  Fred,  he — James  "  (Jo 
sephine  prefers  to  call  him  James ;  she  thinks 
Jim  undignified)  "  is  not  really  homely.  He 


186  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

isn't  an  Adonis,  of  course,  and  doesn't  impress 
one  especially  at  first  glance,  but  anyone  who 
looks  at  him  twice  can  see  that  he  is  very  in 
telligent,  and  that  he  has  the  appearance  of  a 
gentleman." 

"  Eight  you  are,  my  dear.  Perhaps  I  was 
unconsciously  comparing  him  with  the  young 
man  whom  I  met  strolling  with  your  other 
daughter  not  many  days  ago." 

"With  Winona?  When?"  she  asked 
with  a  start. 

"About  dusk." 

"No,  no,  on  what  day?  " 

"  Let  me  see.  It  must  have  been  a  week 
ago  yesterday." 

"Who  was  he?  Why  didn't  you  tell  me 
before?" 

"  He  was  tall,  handsome,  and  impressive- 
looking,"  I  replied,  with  quiet  deliberation. 

"  What  do  you  mean,  Fred  ?  How  slow 
you  are.  Do  go  on." 

"As  to  telling  you  before,  I  thought  it  best 
to  wait  until  you  had  one  of  your  girls  off 
your  mind.  As  to  being  slow,  1  have  told 
you  all  there  is  to  tell  already.  I  met  Wi 
nona  about  dusk  a  week  ago  yesterday  in  the 
company  of  a  tall,  handsome,  impressive- 


A  PHILOSOPHER 


187 


looking  young  man  whom  I  had  never  seen 
in  my  life.  I  don't  know  where  they  were 
going  or  where  they  came  from  or  what  it 


meant.  I  hope  to  see  him  again  so  as  to 
say  to  him,  '  Young  man,  beware ;  I  have  lost 
one  daughter,  and  I  am  in  no  mood  to  be 
trifled  with.'  I  dare  say,"  I  continued,  non- 


188  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

chalantly,  "  that  if  you  were  to  keep  your  eyes 
open  you  would  be  able  to  see  what  is  evident 
ly  going  on  under  your  very  nose,  my  dear." 

Josephine  did  not  heed  this  taunt ;  she  was 
thinking  hard. 

"  I  wonder  who  it  could  have  been,"  she 
murmured,  presently.  "  I  have  noticed  lately 
that  Winona  has  acted  as  though  she  had 
something  on  her  mind ;  but  I  had  assumed 
it  might  be  because  her  patients  were  falling 
off,  owing  to  the  death  of  that  woman  with 
consumption  who  could  not  be  persuaded 
that  she  had  nothing  the  matter  with  her. 
It  would  be  a  great  relief  to  my  mind  to  see 
the  dear  girl  happily  married.  What  did  he 
look  like,  Fred  ?  Are  you  certain  you  have 
never  seen  him  before  ?  Just  think :  you're 
sure  it  wasn't  Mr.  Dyer  or  Mr.  Benson  ?  One 
might  call  either  of  them  tall,  handsome,  and 
impressive-looking. ' ' 

"  I  have  told  you  everything  I  know,  Jo 
sephine,"  I  retorted,  fiercely.  "  I  don't  know 
the  man  from  Adam.  I  should  think,"  I 
added,  with  a  sepulchral  outburst,  "  that  after 
what  happened  yesterday,  Josephine,  you 
wouldn't  be  in  so  much  haste  to  marry  the 
the  only  girl  we  have  left." 


A  PHILOSOPHER  180 

"  Excuse  me,  Fred,"  she  said,  gently.  "  It 
was  cruel  of  me  to  suggest  such  a  thing  so 
soon.  And  yet  I  suppose  we  must  be  pre 
pared  for  something  of  the  kind  sooner  or 
later.  You  know  you  have  constantly  ex 
pressed  the  hope  that  neither  of  them  would 
hang  fire  like  dear  Julia." 

"Oh,  I  know  it.  I'm  a  selfish  brute, 
Josephine,"  I  answered,  beginning  to  hone 
my  razor  with  the  desperate  air  of  one  who 
would  fain  cut  his  own  throat  as  the  simplest 
solution  of  the  problem  of  living. 

And  only  six  months  ago  the  horizon  of 
my  domestic  happiness  looked  so  clear  and 
comforting.  Not  even  a  cloud  of  the  tradi 
tional  smallness  of  a  man's  hand  marred  its 
serenity.  Little  Fred  was  pegging  away  at 
Leggatt  &  Paine's  with  commendable  steadi 
ness  all  day,  and,  though  he  was  apt  to  dance 
all  night  by  way  of  making  up  for  it,  I  was 
comforted  in  my  solicitude  regarding  his 
health  by  the  recollection  that  I  used  to  do 
the  same  when  I  was  his  age,  my  spiritual 
countenance  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding. 
Besides,  Leggatt  has  always  a  good  word  to 
say  for  him,  and  evidently  still  keeps  an  eye 
on  him,  notwithstanding  that  Fred  has  ceased 


190  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

to  kick  foot-ball  and  limps  no  longer.  To  be 
sure,  I  have  been  beguiled  once  or  twice  by 
the  dear  boy's  assurance  that  I  would  make 
my  fortune,  if  I  would  follow  his  advice,  in 
to  buying  investment  securities  the  market 
price  of  which  at  present  is  far  less  than  I 
paid  for  them.  However,  the  financial  mis 
information  imparted  by  one's  own  flesh  and 
blood  is  more  easily  forgiven  than  that  which 
emanates  from  one's  regular  broker.  Besides, 
there  is  the  chance  that  the  stocks  will  come 
up  again  some  day  or  other.  Fred  says  they 
are  sure  to.  Everything  considered  he  was, 
and  indeed  he  still  is,  doing  remarkably  well, 
and  he  is  such  an  honest-looking,  manly  fel 
low  that  Josephine  says  she  wonders  all  the 
girls  do  not  fall  in  love  with  him.  His  pres 
ent  safety  seems  to  lie  in  the  fact  that  he  is 
in  love  with  all  the  girls  and  not  with  any 
particular  one,  a  condition  of  affairs  which  I 
trust  will  last  until  he  is  properly  able  to 
support  a  wife.  I  remember  that  before  I 
fell  in  love  with  Josephine — well,  no  matter. 
I  have  almost  forgotten  their  names  and 
should  have  to  ask  my  darling  to  tell  me  who 
they  were,  and  all  about  it.  I  have  never 
really  loved  anybody  but  her,  God  bless  her. 


A  PHILOSOPHER  191 

Then  there  was  David — again  I  must  admit 
there  still  is  David — whose  rapid  success  in 
his  adopted  profession  and  whose  general 
steadiness  of  character  have  been  a  source  of 
perpetual  gladness  to  us.  He  still  causes  his 
mother  some  concern  by  his  utter  disinclina 
tion  for  the  society  of  young  women,  but  I 
know  of  no  other  fault  with  which  to  re 
proach  him.  His  bacillic  pets  no  longer 
have  a  domicile  under  the  paternal  roof. 
He  has  a  laboratory  of  his  own  downtown 
where,  doubtless,  they  thrive  and  multiply. 
But  his  special  interest  at  present  is  electric 
ity.  This  has  already  brought  him  reputa 
tion  and  money  by  virtue  of  an  appliance  in 
the  storage  battery  line,  the  details  of  which 
I  do  not  precisely  understand.  Although 
Little  Fred  shook  his  head  gravely  at  the 
mention  of  the  word  "patent,"  I  was  impru 
dent  enough  to  follow  my  scientific  son's  lead 
to  the  tune  of  several  thousand  dollars,  the 
happy  consequence  of  which  seemed  to  be 
that  Josephine  and  I  would  be  able  to  have 
our  jaunt  to  Japan  whenever  the  spirit  moved 
us.  That  was  before  I  counted  the  cost  of 
marrying  a  daughter. 

Thirdly,  there  was  that  daughter,  a  dear, 


192  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

sweet  girl,  who  seemed  to  me  perfectly  con 
tent  in  her  enjoyment  of  the  social  pleasures 
in  which  she  was  so  well  adapted  to  shine. 
I  regarded  her  as  still  a  mere  child,  and  though 
youths  came  and  went,  never  for  one  moment 
did  I  suspect  that  she  was  meditating  the 
blow  which  she  has  since  inflicted  upon  me, 
until  Josephine  told  me  one  evening,  with 
a  mysterious,  agitated  air,  that  Mr.  James 
Perkins  wished  to  see  me  in  the  library. 
He  saw  me,  and  all  the  consolation  I  de 
rived  from  our  interview  was  the  impres 
sion  that  he  considered  that  he  was  acting 
generously  in  asking  my  consent  to  the 
match,  and  that  custom  would  have  justi 
fied  him  in  letting  me  hear  the  news  of  my 
daughter's  engagement  elsewhere  and  in  see 
ing  me  further,  as  the  phrase  is,  before  he 
saw  me  at  all.  Kemembering  as  I  did  that  I 
regarded  the  views  of  Josephine's  father 
concerning  our  little  matter  twenty  -  five 
years  ago  as  a  matter  of  mere  detail,  only 
think  how  far  I  fell  short  of  the  temper  of 
a  real  philosopher  in  allowing  myself  to 
become  violently  angry,  and  to  pace  the 
library  until  one  o'clock  in  the  morning  after 
my  would-be  son-in-law  had  left  it !  An  es- 


A  PHILOSOPHER  193 

pecially  futile  proceeding,  as  Josephine  sub 
sequently  remarked,  inasmuch  as,  by  my  own 
admission,  I  had  behaved  like  a  veritable 
lamb  in  his  presence  and  had  told  him 
blandly  that  if  he  and  my  daughter  were 
agreed  upon  the  subject  I  had  not  a  word  to 
say  against  it. 

This  was  the  first  break  in  our  peaceful, 
happy  domestic  circle.  Do  you  know  what 
the  period  of  an  idolized  daughter's  engage 
ment  seems  to  the  disdained  and  discarded 
husband  and  father?  He  is  too  shy  and 
dignified  to  peep  at  the  billing  and  cooing 
through  the  crack  of  the  drawing-room  door 
like  the  younger  members  of  the  family ;  con 
sequently,  the  six  months  which  intervene 
between  the  making  of  the  match  and  its 
consummation,  impress  him  as  a  Sahara  of 
tedious  confabulation  between  the  pair  of 
turtle  doves  as  to  whether  they  have  too 
many  salt-cellars  for  their  marital  needs,  and 
whether  the  exchange  of  a  third  set  of  oyster- 
forks  without  the  knowledge  of  the  donor 
would  be  a  violation  of  the  highest  code 
of  ethics.  Presents,  presents,  nothing  but 
presents,  of  every  kind  and  degree,  from  the 
solid  silver  tea-set  of  exquisitely  fluted  pattern 
13 


194 


THE  OPINIONS  OF 


to  the  excruciatingly  ugly  bit  of  bric-a-brac 
which  has  captivated  the  undiscerning  eye  of 
some  dear  friend.  After  every  ring  at  the 
door-bell  appears  the  maid  with  a  fresh  parcel 


wrapped  in  snow-white  paper  fastened  with  a 
dainty  ribbon,  and  on  each  occasion  my  dear 
Josie's  eyes  sparkle  more  excitedly  as  she 
clutches  it  and  frees  it  from  its  caparisons. 
And  ever  and  anon  I  am  struck  by  the  fact 


A  PHILOSOPHER  195 

that  she  is  growing  thin  and  pale.  I  mention 
it  to  Josephine,  but  she  tells  me  that  girls 
always  get  peaked  before  their  weddings,  and 
that  she  herself  was  thin  as  a  rail  at  the  time 
she  married  me.  I  get  no  sympathy  anywhere. 
My  sole  connection  with  the  matter  is  that  I 
am  to  give  the  bride  away. 

I  did  so  yesterday  in  the  presence  of  our 
entire  social  acquaintance  and  their  dress 
makers,  most  of  whom  I  subsequently  enter 
tained  at  a  mid-day  collation,  where  I  shook 
hands  with  a  vast  array  of  young  people 
whom  I  did  not  know,  and  tried  to  keep  up 
my  spirits  by  asking  my  old  friends  to  take 
wine  with  me.  It  was  after  the  third  glass 
that  the  spirit  moved  me  to  address  my  new 
son-in-law  as  "  Jim."  An  hour  later  I  saw 
the  young  rascal  carry  off  my  Josie  in  a  car 
riage  with  an  air  as  though  he  owned  her, 
and  I  could  have  strangled  him.  At  the 
same  moment  I  was  unpleasantly  conscious 
that  a  quantity  of  rice  hurled  by  an  enthusi 
astic  miss  of  nineteen  was  going  down  my 
back.  I  made  a  mad  rush  forward  like  a 
bull;  I  don't  know  exactly  what  I  had  in 
mind  to  do,  but  I  was  bunted  aside  by  a 
youth  who,  I  am  sure,  could  never  have  had 


196  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

a  father  and  mother.  He  held  an  old  shoe 
in  his  hand,  which  he  proceeded  to  cast  with 
such  unerring  aim  that  it  landed  on  the  top 
of  the  bridal  coach,  to  the  infinite  delight  of 
everybody  except  myself.  I  could  see  no 
especial  humor  in  it,  but  Josephine  tells  me 
that  we  underwent  precisely  the  same  expe 
rience  at  our  own  wedding  and  thought  it 
amusing.  I  perceive  that  it  makes  consider 
able  difference  in  this  world  whose  ox  is 
gored,  or,  to  put  it  more  accurately,  whether 
one  is  carrying  off  some  other  man's  daughter 
or  is  being  robbed  of  his  own. 

And  now  to  crown  all,  I  am  haunted  by 
the  vision  of  Winona  and  that  tall,  hand 
some,  impressive-looking  young  man  in 
whose  company  I  met  her  the  other  day 
about  dusk.  In  saying  to  Josephine  that  I 
had  told  her  all,  I  did  not  speak  the  truth  in 
a  certain  sense.  I  did  tell  her  all  I  knew, 
but  I  did  not  confide  to  her  all  that  I  sus 
pected.  I  did  not  reveal  to  her  that  at  the 
moment  my  eye  fell  upon  them  my  only  re 
maining  daughter  was  gazing  up  into  the  face 
of  her  male  companion  with  that  peculiar 
look  of  absorbed  attention  which  has  so  of 
ten  wrought  the  ruin  of  Platonic  friendship. 


A  PHILOSOPHER 


197 


It  entered  like  iron  into  my  parental  soul, 
already  quivering  with  its  recent  wound,  and 


198  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

I  murmured  to  myself,  "Oh,  my  prophetic 
soul,  my  second  son-in-law  !  " 

Winona  too !  Two  years  have  passed 
since  I  granted  her  permission  to  practise 
Christian  Science,  and  from  that  time  to  this 
she  has  gone  regularly  every  day  to  her  office 
to  minister  to  the  patients  who  have  applied 
to  her  for  treatment.  I  am  unable  to  state 
whether  these  have  been  many  or  few ;  to  be 
frank,  I  have  been  amazed  that  she  has  had 
any  at  all.  But  I  am  sure  that  she  has  had 
some,  and  that  she  claims  to  have  cured  sev 
eral  sufferers  from  chronic  disorders  whom 
the  regular  practitioners  had  declared  incur 
able.  Or,  more  accurately,  I  should  say  that 
she  has  demonstrated  that  there  was  nothing 
the  matter  with  them  save  a  superabundance 
of  error  in  their  souls.  I  have  learned,  too, 
that  she  has  experienced  some  dismal  fail 
ures,  notably  in  the  case  of  the  woman  with 
consumption,  referred  to  by  Josephine,  who, 
as  Winona  explained  to  us,  would  have  got 
well  had  she  only  been  able  to  realize  that 
she  was  getting  better.  There  was  also  a 
patient  suffering  from  mental  derangement 
who  grew  crazier  and  crazier,  until  she  was 
finally  carried  off  by  her  friends,  whereas,  as 


A  PHILOSOPHER  199 

Winona  sweetly  explained  to  us,  if  they  had 
only  allowed  her  to  remain  a  little  longer  she 
would  have  been  completely  cured,  because 
in  Christian  Science,  as  in  nature,  darkness 
is  apt  to  be  most  signal  just  before  the  dawn. 
This  diagnosis  of  the  case  struck  me  as 
highly  reasonable.  Indeed,  I  have  constantly 
said  to  myself  that,  provided  the  dear  child 
managed  to  escape  indictment,  I  had  every 
reason  to  be  contented  that  she  was  living  up 
to  her  lights  to  the  top  of  her  bent.  So  alto 
gether  you  can  see  that  my  home  was  a  happy 
one,  and  that  I  desired  no  change. 

My  two  sons-in-law !  I  see  them  in  my 
mind's  eye  walking  on  either  side  of  me,  the 
one  short  and  slim  with  a  spiritual  counte 
nance  ;  the  other  tall,  handsome,  and  impres 
sive-looking.  Their  main  object  in  life  seems 
to  be  to  help  me  on  with  my  overcoat,  and  to 
guide  my  senile  steps  over  street-crossings, 
though  Dr.  Meredith  tells  me  that  I  am  good 
for  twenty  years  yet,  and  that  I  haven't  an 
unsound  organ  in  my  body.  They  disagree 
with  me  in  politics  so  politely  that  I  am  fool 
enough  to  open  my  best  wine  when  they 
come  to  dinner.  They  dog  my  footsteps  ; 
they  silently  pass  judgment  upon  me,  and  I 


200       OPINIONS  OF  A  PHILOSOPHER 

shall  never  be  able  to  shake  them  off  until  I 
am  dead.  Why  did  they  come  to  worry  us  ? 
We  were  so  happy  before  we  knew  of  their 
existence.  Out  upon  them  both  ! 

Alas,  poor  philosopher !  Shall  I  begrudge 
to  my  darlings  the  happiness  that  I  have 
known  in  the  too  swiftly  fleeting  years  of  our 
married  life  ?  Love  has  come  to  claim  my 
flesh  and  blood  even  as  it  claimed  me  and 
Josephine  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago  never 
to  loose  us  from  his  silken  chains.  Love  the 
immortal,  the  transfigurer  of  souls,  the  un- 
sealer  of  eyes  which  in  vain  have  sought  the 
light  which  streams  from  eternity,  thou  hast 
come  to  work  anew  the  old,  old  story,  even 
though  thy  coming  rends  my  heart-strings. 
Down,  selfish,  stubborn  fumes  of  senile  cyni 
cism  !  I  bow  to  the  law  of  life.  Come  to  my 
embrace,  O  sons-in-law ;  I  love  you,  I  bid 
you  welcome  to  my  hearth,  even  though  you 
regard  me  as  one  for  whom  the  grave  is 
yawning  !  Listen  how  bravely  I  call  Jim — 
Jim — Jim,  a  thousand  times  Jim.  And  you, 
the  other  one,  whose  name  I  do  not  know, 
but  whose  fell  purpose  I  have  detected,  when 
your  name  is  divulged  to  me  I  will  call  that 
too. 


SAID  Josephine  to  me  some  three  months 
ago :  "  Fred,  we  shall  have  been  mar 
ried  twenty -five  years  on  the  twenty-first  of 
next  November.  We  ought  to  celebrate  it  in 
some  way." 

"  How  better  than  by  having  a  silver  wed 
ding?" 

"  Because  so  many  people  would  feel 
obliged  to  give  us  silver,"  she  replied.  "1 
am  perfectly  willing,  Fred,  that  people  should 
send  me  flowers  when  I'm  dead,  but  I  will 
not  have  them  send  silver  to  my  silver  wed 
ding." 

"  The  simplest  way  then  would  be  to  tell 
them  not  to.  Put  in  the  corner  of  the  invi 
tation  the  letters  A.  S.  W.  B.  S.  B.  'All  sil 
ver  will  be  sent  back.'  " 

"This  is  a  serious  subject,  Fred.  I  should 
like  very  much  to  have  our  best  friends  with 
us  on  the  anniversary,  if  I  could  feel  sure 


202  277^  OPINIONS  OF 

that  they  wouldn't  regard  it  as  a  tax.  We  all 
give  willingly  when  people  are  married, but  it 
does  seem  rather  a  grind,  as  the  children  used 
to  say,  to  have  to  go  out  and  buy  something 
else  a  quarter  of  a  century  later,  when  you 
know  that  the  senile  old  couple  will  be  able 
to  use  whatever  you  get  only  a  few  years  at 
the  farthest,  and  that  then  it  will  be  snapped 
up  or  melted  up  by  their  children  or  grand 
children.  Mind  you,  dear,  I  should  often  be 
glad  to  give  silver  myself,  if  I  could  afford 
it ;  but  I  am  looking  at  the  matter  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  world  at  large.  Do  you 
know,"  she  added,  "that  isn't  at  all  a  bad 
idea  of  yours.  We  could  put  on  the  cards 
1  No  silver,'  just  as  they  put  '  No  flowers.' 
It  was  quite  a  brilliant  suggestion,  Fred." 

"  There  are  always  fools,  though,  who  will 
disregard  such  a  notice  just  from  sheer  con 
trariness." 

"  Oh,  if  we  once  gave  them  warning,  and 
they  chose  to  send  notwithstanding,  it  would 
be  their  own  fault,"  exclaimed  Josephine, 
buoyantly.  "  I  should  hope  there  would  be  a 
few  such  people,  for  I  should  be  very  glad  to 
have  more  silver.  It's  not  that  I  object  to 
the  silver,  but  because  I  wish  to  give  a  loop- 


A  PHILOSOPHER  203 

hole  of  escape  to  the  people  who  wouldn't 
send  it  unless  they  felt  obliged  to.  I  should 
expect  surely  to  receive  quite  a  lot  in  one 
way  or  another.  And  it  ivould  be  convenient, 
love,  for  Winona  did  not  get  any  too  much 
when  she  was  married.  Everything  ran  to 
furniture  and  books,  and  out  of  the  little  sil 
ver  she  received  there  were  seven  large  salad 
forks,  all  of  which  had  her  initials  on  them, 
so  that  she  couldn't  change  them." 

There  are  people  who  refrain  from  having 
their  wills  drawn  on  the  score  that  they 
would  be  likely  to  die  if  they  did.  While  I 
have  no  sympathy  with  this  superstition,  I 
must  confess  that  a  formal  celebration  of  the 
twenty-fifth  anniversary  of  your  wedding- 
day  has  always  seemed  to  me  to  savor  of 
willingness  to  have  your  account  with  life 
audited,  with  a  view  to  being  able  to  sink 
quietly  and  becomingly  into  your  grave  when 
ever  you  were  called.  In  view  of  the  fact 
that,  though  each  of  us  has  trifling  ailments, 
neither  of  us  is  seriously  disabled,  it  seemed 
a  little  soon  to  be  taking  account  of  stock  and 
talking  of  putting  up  the  shutters  forever. 
Yet  Time's  figures  are  not  to  be  gainsaid, 
and  especially  in  the  Land  of  Liberty  people 


204  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

are  not  allowed  to  forget  that  they  are  grow 
ing  old  even  if  they  have  no  tall  sons  and 
daughters  to  attest  the  fact.  What  boots  it 
to  protest  that  we  feel  as  young  as  we  ever 
did?  We  might  be  allowed  to  say  so  un 
challenged,  provided  we  did  not  try  to  act  on 
the  assumption,  but  the  youths  without  par 
ents  and  the  newly  created  species  would 
soon  bring  us  to  our  senses  if  we  were  to  as 
sert  ourselves  in  society  so  as  to  cause  them 
the  slightest  inconvenience.  The  middle- 
aged  are  allowed  to  drive  and  go  to  the  thea 
tre,  and  are  tolerated  at  weddings  on  the 
ground  that  they  may  have  given  a  wedding 
present,  and  at  garden  parties  where  there  is 
no  lack  of  space,  but  their  room  is  consid 
ered  better  than  their  company  everywhere 
else,  in  spite  of  the  pretty  speeches  one  some 
times  hears  as  to  the  charm  of  entertain 
ments  where  all  ages  are  gathered  together, 
and  the  glory  of  growing  old  gracefully  as 
they  do  in. England.  I  am  not  complaining, 
for  between  you  and  me  we  wouldn't  be 
hired  to  go  to  one-tenth  of  the  places  to 
which  we  ought  to  be  invited,  so  far  as  our 
physical  state  is  concerned  ;  but  it  would  be 
soothing  to  be  asked  occasionally  and  not  to 


A  PHILOSOPHER  205 

be  treated  as  though  we  were  moribund,  and 
bidden  only  to  Class  Day  spreads  and  to 
church  weddings  without  a  card  for  the  re 
ception.  Once  in  a  while  lately  Josephine 
and  I  have  taken  it  into  our  heads  to  put  in 
an  appearance  at  the  Assemblies,  where, 
though  we  had  been  respectfully  and  cor 
dially  received,  it  has  been  evident  to  us  that 
we  were  regarded  as  social  Rip  Van  Winkles, 
and  that  at  least  half  the  company  were  in 
quiring  who  in  thunder  we  were,  and  the  re 
mainder,  who  did  know  us,  were  wondering 
why  in  time  we  came. 

A  remark  of  Josephine's  served  to  crystal 
lize  these  reflections.  "  Do  you  know,  Fred, 
that  I  think  on  the  whole  we  shall  have  a 
happier  day  if  we  pass  it  quietly  together, 
and  simply  have  the  children  to  dine.  So 
many  of  the  people  of  whom  we  were  fond 
at  the  time  we  were  married  have  passed 
away,  that  I  am  sure  we  should  be  appalled 
by  the  thinness  of  the  ranks  when  we  began 
to  reckon  who  are  left.  Besides,  I  don't 
think  that  a  notice  not  to  bring  silver  would 
really  protect  the  poor  wretches  who  didn't 
wish  to  bring  any.  It  would  seem  too  evi 
dently  to  mean  that  they  needn't  bring  any 


206  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

unless  they  chose  to,  but  that  it  would  be 
acceptable  all  the  same,  which  would  worry 
dreadfully  those  who  like  to  do  whatever 
others  do.  Don't  you  think  so  ?  You  see 
everybody  understands  that  nobody  really 
objects  to  receiving  silver.  Besides,  it  would 
involve  no  end  of  fuss,  and  we  should  be 
so  occupied  with  the  arrangements  that  we 
should  forget  to  pay  any  attention  to  each 
other,  so  that  it  would  be  a  dreary  day  to 
look  back  upon." 

"Indeed,  Josephine,  I  agree  with  you  en 
tirely,"  said  I.  "  Unless  such  affairs  go  off 
just  right  they  are  stiff  and  ghastly.  People 
who  are  bent  on  paying  us  a  compliment  will 
have  an  opportunity  to  come  to  our  funerals 
before  very  long." 

"  Not  together,  though.  Oh,  Fred,  wouldn't 
it  be  the  crowning  thing  of  all,  after  so  much 
happiness,  if  we  could  die  at  the  same  time 
and  never  know  what  it  was  to  miss  each 
other  ! " 

Although  we  are  jointly  and  severally 
aware  that  the  years  have  been  slipping 
away,  and  that  our  turns  to  bid  farewell  to 
this  dear  earth  may  come  any  day  now  de 
spite  the  fact  that  we  feel  young  as  ever,  we 


A  PHILOSOPHER  207 

choose  still  to  regard  death  as  a  shy  visitor 
which  is  likely  to  prefer  others  to  us.  I  say 
to  myself  that  people  rarely  die  of  rheuma 
tism,  which  is  Josephine's  only  cross,  and 
though  pneumonia  is  a  fell  destroyer,  I  know 
that  Josephine  is  firmly  convinced  that  the 
colds  to  which  I  am  subject  never  attack  my 
lungs.  Some  day  one  of  us  will  wake  up 
and  miss  the  other,  unless  my  darling's  pray 
er  that  we  be  taken  away  together  be  grant 
ed  ;  but  until  we  do,  are  we  not  happier  for 
cherishing  the  delusion  that  we  are  to  be 
overlooked  indefinitely  ? 

Was  it  a  delusion,  too,  which  made  my 
darling,  as  I  helped  her  into  our  top-buggy 
on  the  morning  of  our  twenty-fifth  anniver 
sary,  seem  to  me  no  less  beautiful  than  on 
the  day  when  we  plighted  our  troth  at  the 
altar  ?  Did  she  not  wear  the  same  sweet, 
trusting  smile,  the  same  noble  look  in  her 
dear  eyes  ?  I  told  her  so,  and  she  informed 
me  that  I  was  demented,  but  I  know  she 
knew  that  I  thought  she  had  not  changed, 
which  I  am  sure  was  enough  for  her  even 
if  Providence  has  dimmed  my  eyes.  Yet  I 
maintain  that  I  am  right.  She  is  a  little 
stouter,  of  course ;  I  can  see  a  wrinkle  and 


/2 


208  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

a  crow's  foot  here  and  there ;  and  her  hair 
is  grizzled.  But  to  all  intents  and  purposes 
she  does  not  look  a  day  older. 

It  was  a  glorious  morning ;  one  of  those 
mild,  mellow  days  of  the  late  autumn,  when 
unscientific  people  wag  their  heads  and  pro 
claim  that  the  climate  is  changing.  There 
was  scarcely  a  breath  of  wind,  and  the  land 
scape  toward  which  our  steady  nag  trotted 
sturdily  wore  a  faint  atmosphere  of  saffron 
haze,  as  though  the  sunlight  had  been  steeped 
in  the  lees  of  the  yellow  foliage.  And  the 
day  we  were  married  there  was  a  driving 
snow-storm  !  Josephine  had  predicted  so 
confidently  that  history  would  repeat  itself  on 
our  anniversary,  that  I  think  she  was  rather 
disappointed  when  she  awoke  to  find  the  sun 
shining  and  all  the  elements  at  rest. 

Our  Pegasus  scarcely  needed  the  guid 
ance  of  the  reins.  He  knew  where  we  were 
going,  and  sped  along  with  our  comfortable 
if  old-fashioned  top-buggy  at  a  stylish  yet 
self-respecting  gait  in  keeping  with  the  dig 
nity  of  the  occasion.  Our  first  destination 
was  the  attractive  home  of  our  daughter 
Winona,  who  lives  eight  miles  out  of  town, 
on  a  hundred  lordly  acres.  She  has  an  ador- 


A  PHILOSOPHER  209 

ing  husband — the  tall,  handsome,  impressive- 
looking  youth  of  my  prophetic  soul — and  an 
adored  infant  six  months  old.  Her  husband 
is  a  scion  of  one  of  the  oldest  and  wealthiest 
families  in  the  city,  and  he  has  already  made 
his  mark  in  the  political  field.  He  has  been 
a  Congressman,  and  his  admirers  are  talking 
of  giving  him  the  next  party  nomination — not 
my  party  (so  you  see  that  my  partiality  does 
not  proceed  from  political  affiliation) — for 
Governor.  He  is  altogether  a  delightful 
young  man ;  and  as  for  the  baby — . 

Josephine  broke  in  upon  my  rhapsodies 
over  my  grandson  to  say  again,  for  about  the 
fiftieth  time  during  the  last  year  : 

"  To  think,  Fred,  that  though  you  saw  him 
face  to  face,  you  never  realized  that  your  mag 
nificent  unknown  was  merely  Harold  Bruce, 
whom  you  had  seen  and  shaken  hands  with 
under  our  roof  time  and  time  again.  I  laugh 
whenever  I  think  of  it.  You  gave  me  a  fright 
that  day,  when  you  told  me  that  you  had  run 
across  Winona  in  the  company  of  a  mysteri 
ous  stranger,  which  I  haven't  fully  recovered 
from  yet,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  everything 
has  turned  out  so  well.  I  dreamed  that  night 
that  she  had  married  a  professional  gambler, 
14 


210 


THE  OPINIONS  OF 


who  cut  hor  tliroafc  in  the  course  of  the  first 
six  months  because  the  dear  child  refused  to 
aid  and  abet  his  nefarious  schemes." 

I  replied,    meekly,   for   the   fiftieth   time, 


something  as  to  the  agonies  I  had  undergone 
for  several  years  in  trying  to  distinguish  one 
young  man  from  another  when  they  had  pre 
sented  themselves  at  my  house  in  stereotyped 
evening  dress  and  done  me  the  honor  of 


A  PHILOSOPHER  211 

squeezing  my  hand  so  hard  that  it  was  evi 
dently  in  mistake  for  the  hand  of  one  of  my 
girls.  But  though  my  plea  has  a  sardonic 
look,  the  words  were  spoken  on  this  day  of 
days — even  as  Josephine's  were  spoken — 
with  an  air  of  gentle,  joyous  reminiscence,  as 
though,  which  was  indeed  the  case,  we  found 
delight  in  reviewing  again  and  again  the  de 
tails  of  the  great  happiness  which  has  been 
granted  to  us  in  the  marriage  of  our  beauti 
ful  daughter  to  one  worthy  of  her. 

We  drove  up  the  long  avenue  of  tall,  stately 
pines,  and  found  her  sitting  with  her  hus 
band  and  their  little  hostage  to  fortune  en 
joying  the  glorious  mellow  sunshine.  The 
tiny  monarch  sat  in  his  wagon  playing 
with  a  handful  of  autumn  leaves  which  his 
father,  with  proud  paternal  indifference  to 
the  immaculate  surface  of  the  silken  carriage 
blanket,  had  bestowed  upon  him.  I  now  be 
came  the  rival — the  successful  rival — of  the 
rustling  autumn  leaves.  At  my  instigation 
his  mother  freed  him  from  his  equipage  and 
a  little  anxiously  yet  resolutely  laid  him  in 
my  arms.  I  dandled  him,  I  chirruped  to 
him,  I  hummed  to  him,  I  encouraged  him  to 
gnaw  my  watch  and  to  claw  my  mustache, 


212 


THE  OPINIONS  OF 


and  presently  I  began  to  toss  him  up  in  my 
hands  and  let  him  down  again. 

"  Be  careful,  Fred,"  said  Josephine,  warn- 


ingly  ;  and  I  saw  a  shadow  of  solicitude  cross 
my  daughter's  face,  though  she  was  plainly 
doing  her  best  to  seem  unconcerned. 

"  Pooh,"  I  answered.     "  I  tossed  up  all  my 


A  PHILOSOPHER  213 

own  babies  in  this  way  year  in  and  year 
out,  and  not  one  of  them  ever  got  a  scratch. 
I'm  not  going  to  begin  by  letting  my  precious 
grandson  fall.  Am  I,  little  lamb  ?  " 

Thereupon,  by  way  of  showing  what  an 
adept  I  was  in  the  art  of  baby  tossing,  I  shot 
him  upward  with  self-confident  impetus.  To 
be  sure,  my  hands  never  really  left  him  ;  they 
followed  him  as  he  ascended  and  as  he  came 
down.  Still,  pride,  the  traditional  precursor 
of  falls,  stood  me  in  bad  stead,  as  it  has  stood 
others  before  me.  Just  as  my  precious  grand 
son  was  descending  for  the  third  time,  one  of 
my  wrists  seemed  to  turn  or  give  way,  de 
stroying  thereby  the  admirable  balance  main 
tained  by  my  hands,  and,  quick  as  thought, 
Master  Baby  slipped  from  my  grasp  and 
tumbled  to  the  ground. 

A  horrible  wail  of  mingled  pain  and  fright, 
which  wrung  my  heart-strings,  welled  from 
the  lips  of  the  little  lamb,  as  mother,  father, 
and  grandmother  rushed  to  raise  him,  knock 
ing  their  own  heads  together  in  the  process. 
Harold,  white  as  a  sheet  and  with  a  son-in- 
law's  curse,  as  I  imagined,  trembling  on  his 
lips,  succeeded  in  picking  him  up.  I  could 
discern  that  my  grandson's  bald  little  head 


2U  THE   OPINIONS  OF 

was  dabbled  with  blood.  His  mother  evident 
ly  perceived  the  same,  for  she  cried,  with  the 
maternal  fierceness  akin  to  that  which  we  are 
taught  to  associate  with  a  tigress  protecting 
its  young : 

"  Harold,  give  baby  to  me,  and  run  for  the 
doctor." 

Why  is  it  that  at  the  most  solemn  and  seri 
ous  junctures  of  life  thoughts  wholly  irrele 
vant  to  the  occasion  will  arise  without  our 
bidding  and  thrust  themselves  into  discon 
certing  prominence  ?  I  was  not  positive  that 
I  had  not  maimed  my  grandson  for  life,  though 
I  agree  that  his  stentorian  yell  had  relieved 
my  solicitude  a  trifle.  Certainly,  it  was  a 
moment  of  cruel  torture,  which  should  have 
precluded  every  other  consideration  from  my 
brain  than  concern  for  the  hapless  infant  and 
harsh  self-reproach.  And  yet,  as  Winona 
finished  speaking,  I  made  the  imp  of  a  re 
flection  that  she  was  sending  for  a  doctor  in 
spite  of  Christian  Science,  and  that  the  scales 
of  hallucination  had  fallen  from  her  eyes  at 
the  wail  of  her  own  flesh  and  blood.  I  was 
even  tempted  for  an  instant  to  hazard  the 
suggestion  that,  as  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
matter,  there  could  be  nothing  the  matter 


A  PHILOSOPHER  215 

with  baby,  but  I  bit  my  tongue  in  the  throes 
of  my  disgust  at  my  involuntary  levity. 

Harold  had  sped  down  the  avenue  like  an 
arrow,  but  scarcely  had  he  disappeared  be 
fore  the  gory  streak  which  dabbled  my  poor 
little  victim's  brow,  and  which  had  seemed 
to  my  heated  imagination  almost  an  arterial 
outburst,  yielded  to  the  whisk  of  a  pocket- 
handkerchief.  Although  he  still  yelled  as  if 
his  heart  would  break,  I  was  beginning  to  re 
flect  that,  barring  the  very  slight  scratch  on 
his  forehead,  he  was  more  frightened  than 
hurt,  when  Josephine  suggested,  like  a  true 
grandmother,  the  possibility  of  internal  in 
juries. 

My  heart  began  to  throb  violently  once 
more,  and  my  mouth  to  taste  dry,  but  Wino- 
na  came  to  my  rescue. 

"  Mother,"  she  exclaimed,  in  a  tone  of 
stern  impressiveness,  "  it  is  of  the  utmost  im 
portance  for  baby's  sake  that  you  shouldn't 
think  anything  of  the  kind,  for  by  thinking 
that  he  has  any  internal  injuries  you  might, 
or  I  might,  or  father  might  cause  the  darling 
to  think  the  same.  We  ought  all  to  think 
that  he  has  nothing  the  matter  with  him,  and 
then  he  will  soon  cease  to  cry.  Come,  let 


216  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

us  all  tliink  of  other  things  and  take  our 
minds  off  baby.  Don't  even  look  at  him." 

We  hastened  to  do  as  we  were  bid.  I  began 
to  whistle  cheerily,  and  turning  my  back  on 
my  precious  grandson,  called  Josephine's  at 
tention  to  the  beauties  of  the  landscape  in  a 
series  of  philosophic  utterances.  As  for 
Winona  herself,  she  was  Spartan  enough  to 
restore  the  little  lad  to  his  baby-carriage,  and 
to  busy  herself  in  reflecting  whether  the  spot 
of  blood  on  her  robin's-egg  blue  morning 
wrapper  would  wash  out.  Within  three  min 
utes  more  Master  Baby  had  ceased  to  sob, 
and  was  playing  contentedly  again  with  the 
rustling  autumn  leaves,  when  the  regular  prac 
titioner  who,  it  seemed,  lived  close  by,  ar 
rived  with  Harold  at  full  trot.  Winona  rose 
to  receive  him  with  a  sweet  smile,  and  said, 
with  her  old  serenity:  "Baby  is  quite  well, 
Doctor.  We  all  applied  Christian  Science 
principles  to  his  condition,  and  he  finds  that 
he  was  in  error  to  suppose  that  he  was  really 
hurt.  Thank  you  so  much  for  coming." 

I  was  really  too  much  overwhelmed  by 
this  speech  to  think  of  criticising,  but  Jose 
phine  evidently  suspected  me  of  something 
of  the  kind,  for  she  pinched  unmistakably  my 


A  PHILOSOPHER  217 

arm.  As  for  the  poor  doctor,  he  was  smiling 
in  a  sickly  sort  of  fashion  when  my  son-in- 
law,  who  I  am  glad  to  see  is  something  of  a 
philosopher  himself,  broke  in  with — 

"  Since  there  are  no  bones  broken,  the 
least  thing  you  can  do  for  us,  Doctor,  is  to 
stay  to  luncheon.  I  have  opened  a  bottle  of 
Clos  Vougeot  in  honor  of  the  twenty-fifth 
anniversary  of  the  wedding  of  my  wife's 
father  and  mother." 

"Yes,  do  stay,  Doctor,"  said  Winona. 
"And  I  am  very  anxious  that  you  should 
come  and  vaccinate  baby  next  week." 

The  doctor  stayed  and  drank  our  health  in 
a  bottle  of  excellent  wine,  and  not  a  word 
was  said  about  science  of  any  kind  by  any 
one.  As  we  drove  home  I  remarked  to 
Josephine  that  I  had  made  two  discoveries  : 
first,  that  I  had  lost  my  grip  a  little,  espe 
cially  in  the  matter  of  babies,  and  secondly, 
that  Christian  Science  was  evidently  a  con 
venient  doctrine  which  could  be  put  on  or  off 
like  a  glove  as  the  occasion  demanded.  Ee- 
plying  thereto  my  wife  said:  "Fred,  I  con 
sider  that  you  had  a  marvellous  escape  with 
that  baby,  and  that  Winona  bore  it  splendid 
ly.  As  for  her  silly  nonsense,  she  is  evi- 


218  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

dently  in  the  moulting  state,  and  I  prophesy 
that  by  the  time  baby  has  the  measles  we 
shall  hear  no  more  of  it.  Harold  seems  to 
understand  perfectly  how  to  handle  her." 

That  evening  we  had  our  four  children 
and  our  two  sons-in-law  to  dine  with  us.  It 
was  a  state  occasion.  Josephine  was  in  black 
velvet,  and  wore  the  modest  diamond  star 
which  I  presented  to  her  just  before  we  sat 
down  to  table.  The  girls  looked  superbly  in 
their  best  plumage,  and  it  seemed  to  me,  as  I 
glanced  to  right  and  left  from  my  patri 
archal  position,  that  I  had  every  reason  to  be 
proud  of  the  four  young  men  who  will  con 
trol  the  destinies  of  the  family  when  I  am 
under  the  sod.  Proud  not  only  of  my  two 
dear  sons,  but  of  my  two  dear  sons-in-law, 
who,  though  one  is  slight  -and  short,  and  the 
other  impressive-looking  and  tall,  and  though 
both  hold  absurd  political  notions  with  which 
I  have  not  the  slightest  sympathy,  have  so 
completely  won  my  heart  by  their  devotion 
to  their  wives  and  generally  exemplary  be 
havior,  that  I  cannot  choose  between  them.  I 
was  in  a  jovial  mood  that  evening,  I  can  tell 
you,  and  there  was  nothing  excellent  and  rare 
in  my  limited  but  not  wholly  featureless  eel- 


A  PHILOSOPHER  219 

lar  which  my  four  brave  boys  did  not  have 
an  opportunity  to  sample  in  honor  of  Jose 
phine's  and  my  twenty-fifth  anniversary. 

Just  after  the  cigars  were  finished  there 
was  a  ring  at  the  front  door-bell,  and  Sam 
Bangs  came  into  the  dining-room,  rather  to 
my  astonishment,  for  I  knew  that  he  had  not 
been  invited.  "How  d'y  do,  Cousin  Jose 
phine  ;  how  d'y  do,  Cousin  Fred.  Many 
happy  returns  of  the  day." 

I  observed  that  Sam  spoke  with  a  sort  of 
mysterious  blitheness,  as  though  he  was  under 
the  influence  of  a  joke,  and  I  noticed  that  he 
whispered  something  to  my  daughter  Josie  in 
answer  to  an  inquiring  glance  from  her.  Just 
then  there  was  another  ring  at  the  door-bell, 
and  presently  through  the  half-open  dining- 
room  doors  I  caught  sight  of  a  host  of  people 
gayly  trooping  into  the  front  hall. 

"  The  Philistines  are  upon  thee,  Samson," 
exclaimed  Sam  Bangs,  as  I  started  to  rise  in 
my  astonishment.  "  Cousin  Fred  and  Cousin 
Josephine,  a  select  party  of  your  friends  have 
taken  the  liberty  of  celebrating  your  silver 
wedding,  and  are  on  the  way  to  the  drawing- 
room,  where  you  are  requested  to  join  them." 

I  was  too  dazed  to  speak ;  indeed,  I  was 


220  THE  OPINIONS  OF 

conscious  of  a  lump  in  my  throat  quite  in 
consistent  with  a  philosophic  temperament. 
Glancing  at  my  darling,  I  perceived  that  she 
was  agitated,  and  straightway  the  nightmare, 
which  was  at  odds  with  her  joy,  as  to  how 
she  was  to  provide  a  suitable  supper  for 
these  delightful  visitors,  took  possession  also 
of  my  brain. 

"  Sam,"  she  gasped,  "how  many  are 
there  ?  " 

"  All  the  world  and  his  mother,  including 
the  youths  without  parents,"  answered  her 
provoking  relative  with  a  beaming  smile. 

But  Josie,  who  it  seems  was  in  the  secret 
with  Sam,  and  had  managed  with  him  the 
whole  affair,  put  her  arms  around  her  mother's 
neck  and  whispered,  "Don't  believe  him. 
Only  people  who  really  care  for  you  are  com 
ing.  The  supper  is  all  provided  for,  mamma. 
I  entered  into  a  conspiracy  with  your  cook, 
and  you  needn't  give  a  thought  to  anything." 

We  didn't ;  and  we  gave  ourselves  up  to 
the  occasion  with  a  right  good  will.  As  our 
daughter  had  said,  only  dear  friends  whose 
congratulations  were  precious  to  us  had  been 
invited,  and  they,  to  the  number  of  about  fif 
ty,  filled  out  our  drawing-room  wellnigh  to 


A  PHILOSOPHER  221 

overflowing.  Most  of  them  had  brought  sil 
ver — shall  I  say  alas  !  or  happily  ?  General 
ly  some  pretty  trifle  which  vouched  for  the 
sentiment  and  taste  of  the  gift  horse  without 
seeming  to  tax  the  poor  animal's  resources. 
For  instance,  Mrs.  Guy  Sloane  brought  a  sil 
ver  butterfly  intended  for  a  pen-wiper,  and 
my  old  friend  Sam  Bolles  a  silver  paper- 
knife.  Polly  Flinders  (I  never  remember  her 
married  name),  who  has  babies  of  her  own, 
gave  Josephine  a  silver  whistle,  ostensibly  in 
tended  for  my  grandson,  and  Gillespie  Gore 
handed  me,  with  his  best  bow,  an  antique 
silver  decanter  label  marked  "  Madeira."  To 
be  sure,  Mrs.  Willoughby  Walton  did  bring 
a  splendid  Indian  silver  necklace  of  exquisite 
workmanship,  which  she  hung  about  Jose 
phine's  neck  with  a  grand  air,  informing  her 
that  it  had  once  belonged  to  a  princess.  As 
Josephine  said  to  me  later,  Mrs.  Willoughby 
can  afford  to  be  munificent  if  she  chooses, 
and  the  necklace  will  just  suit  Winona's  style 
of  beauty. 

Supper  was  served  at  half-past  ten,  and 
no  one  would  have  guessed  that  my  darling 
had  not  ordered  it.  Our  healths  were  drunk, 
and  the  healths  of  our  children  and  grand- 


222 


THE  OPINIONS  OF 


child,  and  I  was  badgered  finally  into  rising 
and  making  a  few  scattering  remarks  by  way 
of  grateful  acknowledgment.  An  effort  of 
this  kind  would  be  trying  to  the  sensibilities 


of  even  a  real  philosopher,  and  I  will  confess 
that,  what  with  stammering  and  repeating 
myself,  I  was  uncertain  for  some  moments 
whether  I  should  be  able  to  make  myself  in 
telligible.  At  last,  however,  a  sudden  reflec 
tion  coming  straight  from  my  heart  drew  me 


A  PHILOSOPHER  223 

from  the  slough  of  renewing  thanks  and  un 
sealed  my  lips. 

"  If,"  I  said,  "  kind  friends,  you  behold  me 
in  my  fifty-fifth  year  a  contented  man,  toler 
ably  well  preserved,  and  with  the  lustre  of 
true  happiness  shining  from  my  eyes  ;  if  you 
see  around  me  brave  sons  and  fair  daugh 
ters,  with  whose  promise  of  usefulness  as 
men  and  women  you  are  not  ill-pleased ;  if, 
indeed,  there  is  any  good  or  any  virtue  in 
me  or  mine,  know  as  the  source,  the  foun 
tain-head,  the  inspiration  of  it  all,  the  sweet 
est  woman  in  the  whole  wide  world,  there 
she  stands,  my  wife  Josephine." 

As  I  sat  down  amid  a  tumult  of  approba 
tion,  my  darling's  confused  but  happy  smile 
shone  like  a  beam  from  heaven  athwart  my 
misty  gaze.  I  see  it  still  as  I  sit  here  to 
night,  with  her  hand  in  mine  in  our  silent 
but  joyous  home.  The  mystery  of  mysteries, 
life  !  Why  were  we  born  ?  We  do  not  know. 
What  is  to  become  of  us  when  we  go  hence  ? 
We  have  no  knowledge,  but  we  live  in  hope. 
I  live  in  hope.  When  the  last  trump  sounds, 
and  the  graves  give  up  their  dead ;  when  the 
myriads  of  souls  are  brought  face  to  face  with 
God  to  learn  the  solution  of  all  mysteries,  I 


224       OPINIONS  OF  A  PHILOSOPHER 

shall  seek  only  for  Josephine.     That  I  may 
behold  her  then  is  all  that  I  ask  of  eternity. 


If  I  do  not  see  her  sweet  face,  it  will  be  not 
because  I  am  perfect,  but  because  I  have 
sinned  too  much. 


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